Take Residence In My Bones
by babybluecas
Summary: Chained to a comet is not how Dean would describe an angelic possession. It's dark, scary and confusing. As he manages to make sense of the new experience, he finally finds some peace of mind for himself and for Cas. But the Civil War in Heaven is still on and every step of hunt for Raphael gets them closer to not being so close anymore. Will Dean be able to let go?
1. Chapter 1

_Cas?_

_You hear me there? Cas!_

He shouts, but there is no answer. Actually, he's not even sure if he is shouting, since he can't hear a sound. He can't hear anything. He can't see anything, either; it's like that fucking bright light rendered him blind, burned out his eyes, as it did with Pamela's all those years ago. His touch went to hell too, and his sense of being. He hopes to God the whole damn deal worked out, because it's either that, or he accidentally got reduced to a blind, deaf, drooling shell, and he knows he'd rather die.

He feels dizzy and nauseous, but he's set on keeping barf inside his stomach. Mainly because he has no idea where his stomach is, or if it even exists. It should be somewhere roughly in the middle, half-way between his knees and his head, but even if he tried to reach it, there is nowhere to reach. Everything is nothing and nothing and nothing.

_Calm down_. A sound finally appears inside him, though he knows he can't hear it per se – he's got no ears. The sound is the same familiar, soothing timbre, although it is not the same. But it's blue and makes him remember that he's not a whole anymore, he is just _not_. But as the words replay inside him again, only nearer, they let him know, paradoxically, that he isn't losing his mind. For he is his mind and his mind is all he is now. _And stop screaming, please._

He used to scream, he used to shout out some words, he knows that, but he doesn't remember screaming at the moment. What he does remember is that screaming involves a mouth and lungs and he doesn't own either of these things. So no, he isn't screaming. Maybe someone else is?

_Yes, you are screaming, Dean. Calm down._ The words are more forceful this time, more intruding, as if they were trying to influence him, to calm him down by themselves. He thinks maybe it's safer to comply. So he attempts to calm down, he's really trying, but he has no idea where to start. He could try breathing in and out and counting four then seven then eight and from the beginning but, as established, he does not own lungs. And he does not own any air, either. He doesn't own anything, so he's just left with counting one-two-three-four-one-two and soon he forgets why he is counting weird.

_It'll all be easier once you relax._

The words get annoying, telling him about things that he cannot do. Relaxing requires stress and stress requires: a) heart pounding; b) head spinning; c) lungs imploding from sharp inhales.

He does not have these things.

Cas has these things.

_Fuck you!_ he thinks at Cas and he knows that Cas can hear it.

Whatever a Cas is.

_Shhhhhh._ It lulls him and makes him mellow.

Cas is a slightest shift and that smooth sound. A melody in fact; Cas is a buzzing friction of static and he's in a box with the screen, humming in the middle of the night in a motel room. The room is stinky and stuffy. It smells of bodies – living bodies – of their sweat and their lotions and of sperm. It's a really shitty motel room. Yet it's childhood and adolescence and adulthood. It's familiarity. It is too hot and the remote is way out of reach, so Sam can complain later all he wants about the TV being on all night, he stays lying, face pressed to a rigid fabric of the pillowcase. His shirt is sticking to his back and Sammy is snoring quietly on the other bed. Sammy is a shining soul in the bony fingers of death – in Death's bony fingers. Sammy's the boy with a Wall inside his head and he's breathing somewhere to the left.

_Dean, you're losing it._ This time he's not sure whether it's the blue timbre or his own thought startling him, but the motel room is black again and the TV's buzzing is gone.

He doesn't know what Dean is losing, but he figures that Dean is him.

He is Dean and Cas is Dean and Dean is nothing.

* * *

><p>Telling Cas to fuck off had been a mistake and Dean knew it as soon as the angel disappeared on him with a flutter of his wings. He knew it even better three weeks later when Cas hadn't answered to any of his prayers, although he had been praying longer and more fiercely than old ladies at a seven am mass. Not that it hadn't been anything unusual lately: getting a hold of Cas had been about as easy as getting an audience with the Pope, still the hostile tone on which they parted wouldn't let Dean rest. The accusing glares Sam had been throwing his way weren't helpful either, they just made Dean feel even more guilty about the whole thing; as if it was possible.<p>

"You went too harsh on him, Dean," Sam mentioned for the umpteenth time, wiping the chalk dust off his fingers. "He asked for our help. He did–"

"I know!" Dean barked out cutting him off, he didn't need to hear it again. "But don't tell me you weren't pissed too!"

"Well, he did pull me out of the Cage," the man answered quietly, almost sheepishly. He hadn't been exactly faultless either, when it came to that night Cas had come clean, he lined up with Dean against him, he had his share of accusing questions. But Sam, being Sam, and knowing what betraying family feels like, was ready to forgive Cas. Sam had not been the one to kick Cas out.

"Yeah, he did."

How Dean had felt then, how cheated? Betrayed? By a person he'd thought he could trust with his life? Hadn't he had the right to not even want to look at Cas? At the time when he had still been angry about the whole year of absence when he could use a friend, and then not a tad of help on 'what's wrong with Sammy' front. Although Cas knew, he had known all along, and he'd been lying right into their faces – it had been the fucking anvil that broke the camel's back. Cas the bad guy, Cas siding with Hell – all of the explanations, about the Civil War, about 'Raphael blah blah blah' couldn't do squat. They'd had the order of the monster world fucked up so badly they'd come crawling out at all the wrong times, in all the weird shapes, and swarming like locust in Egypt. They'd had Crowley on their asses, dangling with fake leverage over their heads, and the fake threat – one word from Cas could have spared them that, but it was Cas who made them into Crowley's puppies for convenience purposes – that was a real low. All the souls transformed into monsters, all the innocent blood from the war – it got on their hands.

So given it all it'd been understandable that Dean could snap and call him all things ugly and even mean most of those things. But hell if he had ever wanted Cas to get sucked under the ground without a word. Damn angel still took things too literally.

Dean's eyes made the last pass through the list of ingredients to make sure he'd added everything, as he placed the brass bowl above the white outline of the spiral-crossey sigil that was apparently Cas.

"God, I hope this works," he muttered under his breath as he lit a match.

Then he let the match burn for a few beats longer in his palm whose gentlest quiver reflected in the flicker of the growing flame. It was Sam's stubborn look that forced him to drop the match, had it been up to him, he'd have held it between his fingers till the flame licked and burnt his skin. But since Sam didn't seem to fully comprehend the weight of the moment, he could easily press his lips into a thin line and nod expectantly at his brother.

As the match nested on the spices layered in the bowl, the fire flashed high with flying sparks and the glow painting their faces red before dying into scorched embers within a second, raising strong herbal stench into their nostrils. Nothing happened.

There was no flutter of wings nor a soundless appearance of a beige of the trenchcoat. There was no 'Hello, Dean' nor a silent, angry glare, no change in the room, no one but him and Sam, and Dean could look around all he wanted, there wasn't anywhere to hide, no shadow; the angel just wasn't there.

"Come on, Cas," Dean hissed through his teeth, waiting, eyes roaming around impatiently. Perhaps he just needed a few more seconds to arrive, he had to show up eventually. If not…

"Maybe he just really doesn't want to see you?" Sam proposed with an emphasis on 'really' but it didn't change a thing nor the fact that the hope had fled his voice.

"No, Sam," Dean's breath was heavy, as he leaned over the table, his fingers white, clutching to its edge, "it says here that no matter what an angel is doing, this has got to bring him in. As long as the angel is alive, that is," he added, hanging his head low.

Their last resort not only proved fruitless but worse – it laid sentence on the fucking angel and Dean thought how stupid it was, he could have died at any moment during the year he had stayed out of Dean's sight, and now three weeks more on his own and that was it? After all the things Dean had said to him? That was too dumb even for their dumb lives. At surge of rage left by his helplessness, Dean sent the bowl flying across the room until it hit the wall with clatter, spitting its charred insides out on the floor.

Still no Cas.

"Dean, wait, that's not what it… Dean, listen to me. Dean!" Sam repeated with more force, to stop his brother, who was already leaving the room with his shoulders hunched. "This doesn't mean Cas is dead."

Dean stopped with his hand on the doorknob, turned to face Sam, his tired eyes rose to Sam's questioningly.

"If he's held against his will," the younger man began, "it wouldn't work, would it? If he's trapped in Holy Fire?"

His brother had a point and Dean knew that, he quietly scolded himself for being a drama queen, but the next moment he remembered that if being trapped in Holy Fire had ever been a case during those weeks, being dead was a pretty natural next step.

"Yeah, you're right," he agreed slowly, nodding, "he's not dead."

A relief softened Sam's face. If his big brother could have bought it, so could he. But then Dean's head kept bobbing up and down, lips pouting, eyes still raking the empty walls.

"Yeah," he echoed, "alright. Know what, Sam? Let me know when he shows up."

With that mockery, he turned his back to his brother's slouched frame, his abruptly changed expression, and left him alone in the room smelling of burnt leaves and grief.

* * *

><p>The darkness is overwhelming and he is pretty sure it shouldn't be this overwhelming. There was a darkness like this once, he remembers vaguely, in Arizona. The memory is misty and very, very dark and it was the scariest dark he knew, until now. But even then he could still feel, though the air was unmoving, there was a body next to his, a hand clutching onto his jacket and his palm grasping at theirs. Now he can't grasp at anything. Now all he feels is alone.<p>

That darkness was terrifying, because it was bringing a war.

This darkness is terrifying, because it's bringing peace. Or at least it poses to: maybe it's fake, maybe it's lying. Like Cas once did.

_Cas?_ He thinks that way that he learned is thought out loud and heard.

_Yes, Dean?_

_Did everything go okay?_ He remembers to ask. He still doesn't know if he's not catatonic, because if he was betting he would say he is – hooked up to the beeping machines that beep soundlessly and he can't hear them; a huge, white bandage covering a lot of his face, but mostly eyes that aren't there. Sam mourning him semi-alive. And he's just lying and lying, because he can't move, because he is stuck here, hallucinating the blue.

But Cas says: _Of course_. Of course everything went okay, of course your body isn't deteriorating, because your body is mine now.

It's comforting, kind of.

_It went perfectly fine,_ Cas keeps talking, _just like I expected._ Dean likes it when Cas is talking._ Sam was a little bit… uncomfortable in our presence._

Dean would smile if he could. Cas must be smiling, too, because it gets lighter. He likes it when Cas is talking, because when he hears his voice he has something to concentrate on and he doesn't drift off to the hospital beds and motel beds and some places that don't have beds. When Cas is talking, it's not that dark anymore, because then darkness is blue and it's not quiet, naturally (although it still is).

_So I'm not exploded?_ He makes sure. There used to be angels exploding. The exploding angels were Cas. Cas does that sometimes – he explodes. Therefore being Cas makes one likely to explode and Dean is Cas now, so he'd rather know.

_You're not exploded_.

_Good. I wouldn't like to be exploded_.

It gets lighter and lighter and then the blue starts vibrating on the edges, tickling Dean and he thinks that this must be Cas laughing. It's pleasant – it's fucking awesome – it's like pie and sex and Cas combined and Dean takes a mental note to make him laugh more often. He wonders if that laughter reflects on Cas's face right now; on his face – he corrects. He ponders on how his face looks with Cas's laughter. He wonders how Cas's face would have looked like with Cas's laughter. He has never, in fact, seen Cas laugh. And he never will now.

_I wouldn't like you to be exploded, either._

* * *

><p>The long evening didn't bring any new solutions, no motion in the right direction or in any direction whatsoever. They were gonna head for Bobby's early in the morning to continue digging into the mystery of the ominously sounding Mother of All and Sam was already deep asleep in his bed – or pretended well – breath slow and steady in the darkness. There was no way Dean was sleeping that night, so he didn't even bother lying down and closing his eyes; it would only bring images and sounds he didn't want. Even the scents that still lingered were stronger in the dark, the hopelessness, too.<p>

Dean needed some air.

Moving slowly, not to wake Sam up with the squeaking of the springs in the old, motel bed, he got up and felt for his coat on the hanger. The door creaked too, as it let the cool, night wind in, slipping into Sam's dream, making him wiggle under the covers, yet not stirring him awake. Dean froze for a beat, waiting for his brother to settle again, before exiting the motel room. His boots stamped heavily on the wooden stairs leaving footprints in a thin layer of frost; his lungs filled with coldness, exhaled vapor. His brain went blissfully numb for a couple of heartbeats, before resuming its troubled march.

His path was only lit by the moonlight, the satellite was in its fullest, hence the werewolf they'd killed earlier that day – the reason they'd even come to the town. It was bizarre, how strangely distant the encounter now seemed, although the lacerations from the claws on his left arm still stung like hell. Much more immediate felt the weigh of Castiel's confession, the roughness of his voice that had shaken and broken at times, the heaviness with which the sentences had been crawling out of his mouth, each borne in pain of the months spent on lying.

Dean got it all now, what he had not understood at the time when it most mattered. He had lacked the clarity and the self-control that one does not gain until it's too late.

He made his way toward the vending machine at the end of the building, just to give out a disgruntled sound as he discovered it only sold cold soda in the dead of February. He'd counted on a chocolate bar or anything that wouldn't make him die of hypothermia. He took a step back, pushing his fists deep into his pockets. He considered going back to the motel room, finding a bottle of Jack and drinking himself senseless; then he considered jumping into the Impala and driving until his brain shuts off. In the end he did neither, not right away.

There was something familiar in the surroundings, and not in the 'every vending machine by every motel ever' way. It was the night and the aloneness and the anguish of caring when nobody else seemed to do anymore, or not enough at least. He started to pray.

"Alright, Cas, uh, you hear me there, buddy?" There was no answer, but he didn't really expect any. There hadn't been any answer for three weeks, why should there be any now? "Listen, I– I think I'll stop bugging your ass now, you've more important stuff to do, right? But, uh– You're not dead, are you?" he made sure first, even if 'sure' was utterly subjective in his case. Still the childish naivety won, resounding in his voice, painting it with the vulnerability he tried to hide inside. "Because if you're not, you could come back, you know? Screw what I said, we'll fix this," he promised, "all of it. So if you can, man, come back."

It came too close to begging, but Dean didn't really care, no one could hear him anyway. But just in case he looked around; whether in hopes of Cas showing up or in fear a temporary neighbor coming out for a smoke and witnessing his emotional, psychotic episode – he was not sure, probably both, though he counted on the first. He was still alone.

"And if you're dead," he added somewhat quieter, "you could at least let us know."

He shook his head at the last part, the absurdity of it, and the next second the possibility of this Cas-less state being the new reality hit him in the gut, almost throwing him off his feet. The prayer was supposed to make it go away, creating an illusion of connection through that one-way conversation, but it wasn't good enough; the silence on the other side of the line seemed to have only made it worse.

Still how inconceivable did the idea of Cas being dead feel. All those years he'd seemed unbreakable. No, not unbreakable – repairable. There had been a time when Cas had been a molar in Chuck's hair, mourned quietly, and he'd come back. He had been a spatter of blood on Bobby's dead face and he'd come back, brand new and shiny with power. There had been a time when Cas had been human, all flesh and bones and banished grace, as weak as them and so touchable… At some point Dean had started to believe that Cas was forever – that was what angels were, wasn't it?

Sam had been right, Dean decided, Cas wasn't dead. Because Cas had been beaten and stabbed and trapped and annihilated, Cas had been many things, but 'dead' could never be one of them. Not permanently.

"We'll fix this," Dean muttered with conviction, hoping Cas would hear it and believe it. And come back. "All of it."

* * *

><p>Cas says it's not even a day since it started. Cas says bullshit for sure, because it lasts forever and it's always been forever and it has never started. It just is. It's strange how time doesn't work here at all, yet it moves and it moves so slowly that it's always <em>is<em> and it's never _was_ or _will be_ and Dean sometimes forgets there ever was a beginning and there will ever be an end.

Dean sometimes forgets a lot of things. Like burgers, what they taste like. He finds it frustrating, not to remember burgers, so he does his best to recall their greasy taste, the crispy bun and the juiciness of its insides. And then when he tries really, really hard, he's on a seaside in Delaware in the hot rays of sun that burn his back and bleach his hair.

Sometimes he forgets about the Wall, sometimes even the war slips his mind and it feels so easy that he never wants to remember these things. He seems to forget a lot of things with 'w', because he can never remember his own last name. But then he remembers – not the name – the other w-things, and terror passes through him like a wave, because there is not a single thing he can do, cut off like this. And of all the places he drifts off to, he can never get to Sam, because whenever Sam is there, he knows it isn't Sam, so he cannot tell him things, ask him how he is. If anything, it's like that piss poor excuse of Heaven, where nothing is real and has mostly already happened.

_How is Sam?_ It's more of a thought passing by, but maybe it lingers or is thought too loudly, because the blue's right there to answer.

_When I left him and Bobby yesterday, he was fine._ And it reminds him again that the time doesn't move._ Do you want me to check on him?_

_No._ Cas has a mission, he thinks, Cas always has a mission and the mission's often Dean and not often Sam._ No, focus on Raphael, Sam will be okay._

Cas agrees with him soundlessly and goes quiet and then speaks again.

_You need a pastime._

Dean ponders on how funny it is that the word absolutely doesn't belong here: he can't have a pastime where there is no passing of time nor time to pass.

_Sure, _he thinks out cockily,_ love me some pastime. Send me down a book or something._

_You don't have eyes._

The answer's fired back quickly and if Dean did have eyes, they'd go wide with shock. It's one thing to contemplate his own lacking anatomy to himself and something else entirely to have it pointed out by the creature who is using said anatomy. But then the lightness flickers telling him that Cas is just fucking with him. _Do you want me to read to you?_

_Shut up._

He wouldn't mind, he thinks, if Cas read to him he could listen to Cas's voice a lot. He could listen to its lulling melody and let the words steal his frail attention. But Cas is mostly quiet, because he's got stuff on his head that's more important than entertaining Dean, and when he is quiet, Dean wonders if he's disturbing him with his constant forgetting and thinking and sometimes screaming, when he's abruptly back in the nothing and he needs to learn things again; things like that he is alive and he is Dean and the blue is Cas possessing Dean.

_You'll feel better holding onto something solid,_ Cas tells him and Dean wonders if he's liquid now, or vapor, and if he should be solid but fails.

_No idea where you're heading with this._

_When you, as you call it 'drift off', do you go somewhere specific?_

When he drifts off, he goes to places, mostly well-known places, sometimes places he doesn't like, but when he tries to think of a place he visits more often than others, there isn't one – maybe because they all happen at the same moment, so he can't be in them twice.

_They're different places each time._ Dean explains, and then remembers:_ they're really vivid, but completely static._

_That's because you don't control them, you have to make them yours._

_Okay, how do I do that?_

_You just have to concentrate. Imagine a thing but don't let it carry you away. Focus on that thing._

_What thing?_

_Something you know very well. A person, a place…_

It doesn't sound too hard, he decides, it's not like there's anything else he can do here than imagine. He starts digging for an image he can easily evoke. A place or a person – he automatically casts Sam's tired smile and stupid hair aside, because Sam is never real here and he doesn't want a not-real Sam – he's had a not-real Sam for a year and then some.

Then he thinks about the blue and it leads him to the eyes that are like a radiant sky and always staring stubbornly and he knows he knows these eyes well, so he puts them into a face. The face is kind of squinty and he knows it well, too. He knows the creases in its brow, fringed with messy, dark hair and the nose that wrinkles funny and the dark shadow of a stubble that surrounds the chapped lips and Dean lingers on those lips until those lips get swollen and cracked in two spots and both corners are bloodied with blood that drips in dried trails down the chin and down the neck that's split in two. Long horizontal gash still pumps red liquid with life out of the paling body, bruised body. Dead body.

Lights go out and Dean wakes up from a nightmare, within a nightmare, but Cas's dead face stays with him, like burnt into his mind's retinas, lifeless, empty eyes stare at him, only this time he can't reach out his hand to close the eyelids. It takes everything to remember that Cas is not dead, that Cas is here, that Cas is the blue ray of heavenly sunshine. It takes a lot to believe that Cas is very much alive, that his heart is beating with Cas's heartbeat and his green eyes are staring with Cas's stubborn stare and his back carries the weight of Cas's wings. He needs to believe that to calm down and not to scream. He doesn't want Cas to know he wants to scream.

It takes him what could be a month but was probably thirty seconds to compose himself and another ten to take the courage and dig again, deeper.

Screw people, because people come and go, and people die, if he needs something solid, something solid is shining in the dark, just as black. She's solid, because she's been always there and she's home. Her every curve is etched to his memory like a tattoo, where his fingers were needles inking with every loving touch and every caress. And every time he repaired her and built her up from the scratch is like a scar that's worn with pride. Every time he fixed her, he made her the same. Unlike people, she never changed and never let him down.

Inside her, the air is filled with the fragrance of old leather and bonfire and a bit of something sweet he doesn't recognize. She's quiet. And then she's not, as her engine starts roaring excitedly. His foot is on the gas, his scratched knuckles are embracing the wheel, the seat feels warm and it remembers him like a memory foam, proving he exists and always have. He is solid.

Even the wind seeps in through the window and whistles around his head to welcome him back on the road. And the road ahead is long and empty and the air above it vibrates in the hot, desert sun. The horizon is far, far away and the world before him seems endless, so he lets his boot fall heavier on the gas pedal as Baby's purr carries him ahead. His fingers drum eagerly on the wheel, with a quiet _tap tap tap_, firmness of it feels relieving under his fingertips.

Dean's home.

But there is something missing in this home. Something very vital that should be there. Something that needs to be there, right beside him and it's not there – when he looks to the right, the passenger seat is empty.

"Sam?" His foot slides to the brakes rapidly, because he's lost Sam, he left him somewhere and he doesn't remember where. Maybe in a motel after their latest hunt, maybe in a supermarket in the rabbit food section, maybe in the Cage.

He releases the brake, before the car stops he remembers – he remembers everything and he wonders how he could forget. This is not the Impala, this is not a road.

"Dammit, Cas!" he howls as if it was Cas's fault, his palm slaps angrily on the steering wheel. It hurts and the awareness that it's not physical doesn't lessen the sensation. He still feels and still sees the dashboard, his legs clad in dark blue jeans, still hears the engine running. Nothing has changed.

Not a single piece of the scenery is real so it shouldn't matter, but it does. It matters because it fooled him: a simple illusion, a trick played on his mind by his mind; and unlike dreams, even those most vivid and controllable that Cas haunts, or used to haunt – this slice of a world has been in its entirety his conscious creation.

"Good job, Dean," Cas compliments him, appearing on the empty passenger seat without a warning, but Dean doesn't even flinch nor does he take his eyes of the road. He does not fear heading off the track and crashing, because it's not something that can happen or would matter here anyway. What he fears is seeing Cas, seeing what he is, now that he's not _Cas_ anymore. Just as in the nothingness, Dean let's Cas remain the voice and the feeling alone.

"Let's see how long you can keep it up," Cas teases and Dean can feel his eyes on himself.

"I can keep it up long enough, thank you very much," Dean jokes in response, allowing his lips to twist up into a brief smile. "So what, I just drive and drive 'til it drives me crazy?"

Before the words even escape his mouth, he knows he doesn't mean them, not in the slightest. He could drive on and on and on and never get crazy – the exact opposite in fact – he hasn't felt this sane in a long time. For the past twenty odd hours that felt like infinity he's felt like his brain has turned into a fuzzy mush and it is wonderful to have found out that that long, bad acid trip did not cause it any permanent damage. While it was happening, it was one hundred percent real and he is not trying to deny it, he wouldn't be able to if he tried and even in this new clarity, he can't shake that darkness completely off. The panic, the confusion, the terror of all his senses killed off – in the utter seclusion his thoughts devoid of anything existent to hold on to – ran through him all at once and escaped him at the same time.

Looking at it all from perspective Dean knows he went totally cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, but he also knows that he can't blame himself for it in the slightest if even fucking time doesn't exist down there. In the Impala time does exist in a sense that there is a was and there is a will be, not constant is is is and he can distinguish one point from another, even if he can't estimate the time's passage. Even if he could, it probably still wouldn't correspond to the time passage in the real world.

So as boring as an uneventful car drive might be, he's got working senses, working time and working marbles. For the first time since saying 'yes' he feels like a human being, so he's not exactly gonna complain.

"No, you can do whatever you want," Cas replies simply.

"That means?"

"Dean, it's your own mind," the angel explains, "It's not a prison. Some would actually say you're freer here than out there, limited by the material world."

"Cut the crap, Cas," Dean mutters, not wanting to hear the philosophical pep talk.

Lulled by the firm comfiness of sanity, he forgets that he was scared. His head turns to Cas with a strange sense of impatience, a want to see the angel's face again, but when his eyes meet Cas's, what he sees is not blue but green, the face is the same old thing that stares back at him from every mirror.

Sleep twitch.

Darkness.

Silence.

There wasn't any falling.

_I told you you can't keep it up_.

Blue's joke is cruel as it crosses him with lightness and leaves behind nothing again and he is spinning with no mouth and no heart and he's screaming, he's kicking, he's crying. Only he's not. He's deep, deep down so he must be fallen after all, he's choking, he forgets he doesn't breathe.

He needs one infinity to simmer down.

_What the fuck was that?_ he thinks out, finally.

He is Dean and Dean is alive.

_Complete control will require some practice_, comes down a dry answer.

_No, I meant– _he trails off. He thinks of control and about remembering. There was Sam that wasn't there and he remembered and he didn't fall then. Then there was him or Cas or whatever the fuck it was whose smirk is stuck like a silhouette of light on a shadow. If the creation was fully his, this must have been his design too, only he's not the maker of it. His reality has Cas as he always is: trenchcoat, tie and Jimmy Novak. But now he's not even allowed to imagine that blue-eyed face, it can only be fucked, therefore Dean is fucked. It's a very important face. _Nevermind_.

_What did you see?_ Cas's curiosity leaves an aftertaste and confuses Dean.

_You mean you didn't see that?_

_See what? I don't… I keep away from your head, Dean. I respect your privacy… To whatever extent it's possible._

_Oh._ The thought of privacy sounds nice as a compensate for the lack of the bodily autonomy. For some reason though, no thought privacy doesn't sound so bad either._ Thanks, Cas._

_I assumed that was obvious._

If it's a question, Dean doesn't answer. He thinks about Cas being in his head. Cas is everywhere, why not in his head too? Why doesn't it seem disturbing? Unless it's Cas seeing Cas in Dean's body through Dean's imagined eyes – that is disturbing and Dean is glad he has his privacy.

_Whatever you saw, Dean, it was your unconsciousness. You need practice._

Unconsciousness, Dean thinks, it must be scary. Or scared. He doesn't like his unconsciousness a bit and he doesn't want it if it messes Cas up. Dean needs Cas not messed up.

After all, Cas is all Dean is now.

* * *

><p>"Last time we had anything to do with him, your brother almost murdered me, but…" Bobby's lips pressed into a thin line as he tipped his head meaningfully.<p>

"But he's our best chance at finding Cas," Dean finished for him, nodding pensively. "Probably the only one."

"Unless you know any other buddies of his."

"Why did I not think about him earlier? I just need the right sigil for the ritual," he added, rummaging through the books on the desk, until Bobby pointed him to the right one.

"Just do it alone," the old man asked. "The angel babbles a lot and we don't want that boy's Wall accidentally snapping."

"Good point," Dean murmured from over the book. He wanted to do the ritual as soon as possible, Balthazar had to know something about Cas's location. They most likely worked together now, searching for their loose nukes. Who else could Cas have turned to once Dean had failed to provide him help he needed? "Thanks, Bobby."

Dean set everything up in the garage, while Bobby occupied Sam with some research on the Mother. It was kind of a déjà vu, the same bowl filled with the same types of leaves, the herbal fragrance so familiar to that which still lingered on his skin, reminding him of the previous night and the failure. Even the chalk drabbles were similar but for the angel's sigil. Only the outcome was different this time.

The angel appeared before the reddish flame even ceased. He was not an image of nonchalance, unlike the last time Dean had seen him, his jacket's sleeve was ripped at the seam, gray shirt painted with blood, just like his face. His moves were swift and rabid, accompanied by a violent flutter of his invisible wings cutting the air. The silver blade in his palm prepared for the attack. Yet it did not take him more than half a second to reflect and realize he was not on a battlefield anymore.

"It's always impeccable timing with you, Winchesters," Balthazar said, sans greeting, standing up straight to glare at Dean. The back of his hand reached to wipe off the red trail dripping from his smashed lip – both blood and gash disappeared immediately. "What may uncle Balthy do for you?"

The angel's tone made it impossible for Dean to figure out whether he was mocking or was in fact at least partially glad for having been pulled out of the combat. He'd expected something along 'are you aware of what you've done?', not this, but then, when they first met, Balthazar hadn't made an impression of someone who awfully minded going AWOL. Besides, Dean didn't give rat's ass about Balthazar's feelings, the matter was simple: answers and he could continue playing war with his pals if he wanted to.

"Where's Cas?" Dean requested unceremoniously.

"Isn't he _your_ boyfriend?"

Dean rolled his eyes, he didn't have time for this. Why were angels always allergic to straight answers?

"Where is Castiel?" he repeated the question more forcefully, taking a step towards the angel. "He work with you?"

"Who else could he come to, after his lover broke his little heart?" It had stopped being funny the first time around.

"You're repeating yourself," Dean sighed. "Where _is_ he?"

"You're repeating yourself too. Why should I tell _you_?"

"Because I want to help!" Dean slowly began to lose his composure.

Balthazar's features darkened. He wasn't the same careless, self-indulgent man they had met at his mansion months ago. There was more bitterness hiding in the creases on his face, exhaustion dimmed his eyes, like they'd seen terrible things, like _he_ had done terrible things. Castiel's words suddenly echoed in Dean's head: _Certain... regrettable things are now required of me_. Cas was not the only person on whom the war had taken its toll. He took his allies down with him.

"Oh, so now you want to help? And where were you, when he asked you to?" the angel asked roughly. "Or maybe you just need something from him again?"

"You know wh–" exasperated, Dean bit his tongue just in time. Last resort, he reminded himself, he wouldn't want to anger an already pissy angel and say goodbye to the only chance of getting an information about Cas. "Listen, I just need to know if he's okay," he said instead, "and if there's anything we could do for him."

"Alright, if you really need to know, he's being tortured by Raphael as we speak."

The words dawned on Dean like a punch in a stomach that blew the whole air out of his lungs, and the odd casualness with which they had been uttered sent cold shivers down his spine.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Take me to him!" he demanded, stepping closer.

The angel huffed out a humorless chuckle.

"Don't you think I'd have rescued him myself if I knew where he's being held?"

"Then find him!"

"That's the general plan," he answered. "Now, if you may, I've business?"

With that, before Dean could even say a word, the angel was gone, leaving him more shaken than he had been the day before. But Cas wasn't dead, that was what mattered, Sam had been right after all. Which, concerning the circumstances, still didn't seem like much of a consolation.

* * *

><p>"I'm starting to wonder why people don't flock to sign up for being a vessel."<p>

"Really?"

Dean keeps staring at his palm in a fruitless attempt to will a bottle of beer into existence. The experiment is aimed more at trying out the magic than at the actual need to quench his thirst, which he, by the way, does not feel. He never feels thirst or hunger or bursting bladder here, which only adds to the awesomeness of the realm. Sure, the place is still unstable and any abrupt loss of control can spit him back down below, more lost and fucked up than the first time over and then he needs to start from the very basis – from recalling who he is. But it's worth it, because then he can sit on the hood of the Impala with the warm sunrays licking his face and just enjoy having senses.

Cas told him he's got an entire universe, but he's not really in a rush to discover it. At least not landscape-wise – he'd rather find out what he can do than where he can get. So he sticks to the easy views – sometimes he passes through the monotonous plains of Kansas, sometimes through even more unchanging deserts – basic things, known by heart – he's not sure he's yet ready to construct a Los Angeles. He never creates people – he knows they're not real. They might look the same, made from the same bones and flesh, but their words are replays of finished conversations, or Dean's thoughts pushed into their mouths at best. Like Sammy who can only always be a replica – a memory sleeping in a corner, and nothing more. Dean doesn't need unreal people: he doesn't try playing home with Lisa and Ben, he doesn't go for a chat with Bobby. There's just him and Baby and that's enough.

Well, there is also Cas and Cas is the only thing he can't control, because Cas is not imagined. He drops in from time to time for a chat and it differs from the chats in the darkness in that Dean doesn't have to strain himself not to talk gibberish. It's nice, really, to hear his actual voice, throaty and deep, instead of having his words in the hue of blue appear inside him, however dirty that sounds. It's nice to comprehend those words, which is not always the case down there.

"Nah, not really," Dean decides, waving his free hand. "Stolen life, risk of death and all that. Still, your PR fucking sucks."

"I don't know, Dean, I always considered doing God's work a quite good PR. In some circles at least. Besides," he adds, his voice noticeably gloomier, "it's not really my concern anymore."

"Yeah, right." Dean thinks of stopping it then and there, if the subject's too depressing for his angel, but then the curiosity wins. "But what Jimmy said about possession… Being chained to a meteor or something like that? It's not how I'd describe it."

Ever since Jimmy Novak and his family that got screwed over by Heaven and Hell, the poor sob who gave up his life on the so-called holy mission wouldn't leave Dean's mind for a long time. He though about being ripped away from his wife and daughter, not knowing if they're well or even alive, not being able to ever come back to them… those were things Dean could sympathize with, things that made for his worst nightmares. Yet that particular line about the convenience of being an angelic condom never bothered him much – maybe slightly when the whole Michael's Sword thing came up. But then when Dean got the same offer Jimmy once did, perhaps differently phrased, his words couldn't stop ringing in the man's head.

"That's because it's not half the same for you, Dean."

"What does it mean?"

"When I entered your body, I shut off your senses. I didn't do that for Jimmy," Cas explains. "He experienced everything I did, although his brain couldn't handle it most of the time. I imagine it being quite… traumatizing."

"Wait," he mulls the new information over, not paying much attention to the caution. _Traumatized_ is pretty much his middle name. "So I could see and hear what's happening out there?"

He suddenly regrets starting the conversation altogether. Being useless didn't feel as bad, as long as it was the only possibility. He could tell himself that he's helping already, being the vessel for Cas, that maybe he could not worry about anything for a while and learn to enjoy his stay. Somewhere between dark-diving and playing the architect of the whole world, he came to appreciate the tranquility this dimension provided him. He hasn't felt this relaxed and worry-free since… ever. There was constantly something to fight, something to look out for, everything always on his shoulders, like he's fucking Atlas. Even sex seldom gave him this much ease anymore.

He was never a person who were allowed to take the nicer alternative. Selfish of him to even consider it. But this? The freedom, the comfort this place offers lures him. The temptation seems almost too strong to fight. Is it so terrible to be simply content for a while?

"Yes, you could. But, Dean, as I mentioned, it wouldn't be pleasant. Trust me when I say this is better for you."

Dean swallows hard. He doesn't have to make the choice just yet.

"But you didn't do it for Jimmy," he questions instead.

"I didn't care," Cas admits regretfully. "As you recall, I wasn't exactly the same person back then."

"Yeah, you were a dick."

Cas answers him in a hoarse chuckle and they both stay quiet for a moment. Dean thinks maybe he wants too much wanting beer.

"Anyway, your spidey senses tingling yet?" he asks, breaking the silence.

"No, my… spidey senses," Cas repeats carefully, obviously not understanding the reference, "are quiet. Raphael's nowhere near."

Dean's lips twist up in a brief smile.

"And you're sure you'll just _know_ when you're close to him?"

"I assume so," he answers and something in his tone sounds comforting. "He's a powerful angel. Even when he's wounded like this… He still gives out a lot of certain, let's call it, energy."

"What if he's masking it? He hid you and himself so well Balthazar couldn't find you."

"Balthazar knew all along where I was," he says quickly and Dean's not at all surprised. "Besides I'm prepared for that possibility too. I _will_ find him."

Cas must be standing close, somewhere around the driver's door. Dean could feel him since the moment he appeared soundlessly and before he even spoke a word.

Cas is never anything more than the voice. He always pops in behind him, usually in the backseat, way out of Dean's sight, or even the rearview mirror's reach, just in case. And Dean doesn't even attempt to turn around, too burned to try. They've never talked about it and Dean was quite glad for a while that they didn't need to, that Cas just _knew_. And it doesn't even matter how he knew despite having promised to stay away from Dean's head. Dean thinks loud, he screams when he's down there, that must be it. All his quasi-philosophic disputes, crazytown ramblings and flashes of outright terror and bliss – Cas must be receiving it all, whether he wants it or not. That's a valid explanation, Dean mused and left it at that – he let the guy in, so if he trusted him enough to offer him his body then, he must keep it up now when it comes to his mind. And he does.

It's rather the matter of _how much_ Cas knows that started bothering him eventually.

"Cas, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"When I–" he begins and trails off looking for the right words, but then decides to lay the cards down, knowing Cas would get it: "you saw it, didn't you?"

"I'm assuming you mean the way you saw me for the first time here." Dean appreciates Cas approaching the topic in a non-triggering way, although it doesn't really make a difference, the picture echoes in his head anyway.

"Yeah, in the Impala," he confirms.

"I don't know if it was the Impala," Cas explains, "and I didn't see it at the moment. But then you kept thinking about it over and over, it was really difficult to ignore. And I tried."

There goes the how.

"Oh, okay," he murmurs, but his mind is already somewhere else.

He thinks of Cas seeing Cas as him through his eyes and then of Cas seeing Cas as him in the mirror. It had probably something to do with Dean being just a human, with his dull human senses perceiving only the seeable, the touchable parts, but for him Cas has always been Cas – grumpy face and bed hair Cas. And it's not like Dean was new to the whole vessel business, he was a veteran. Not to mention his survivor brother. Not many other human beings were probably this equipped in knowledge required the understanding of the mechanisms of possession. And to top it all off there are demons too, burning out one meatsuit after another, as if they grew on trees, nevermind the human lives they devoured.

Dean killed a girl once. Years ago. She had blonde hair and wide eyes and her mouth was bleeding. He wasn't the one who pushed her out through the window, but he didn't save her either. Not long after that, Dean killed a man, with a gun, straight to his head. They hit him hard, his first murders – because that's what they were. And then they weren't. There came the open gates of Hell and the Seals and the Apocalypse and murder wasn't a murder anymore, a kill wasn't a kill. A body after a body after a body, every time he dug Ruby's knife into flesh, human flesh, it was a demon he was slaying.

One would think that Michael's destined prom dress could be more considerate of the supernatural hostages whether they were demons' or angels', and Dean was, really. He saw Bobby possessed and dad possessed, and Sam too. Still, had he felt the weight of every soul he sent away, he'd have gone mad a long time ago.

It seemed like a perfectly just karma that he became one himself: a vessel, a meatsuit. Were an angel's blade to drive through his heart, he'd perish, forever nothing more than another being's face.

Yet there is this selfish double standard in the autopsy where one is not everybody else and if he dies inside Cas, he'll die outside of him. Dean is more than Cas's face, therefore Cas is more than Dean's face.

Cas is Cas.

Cas is the blue-eyed man and Dean curses himself silently for how important that is to him. So whether he's currently the skyscraper stuffed down Dean's throat, he still needs his own damn face if Dean is to talk to him.

"Dean," the angel's voice startles him a little, "I told you I don't come close to your head."

There is a request in his tone and it takes Dean a while to remember what the question behind it is and where it comes from.

"I know," he answers finally, realizing how wrongly Cas understood him.

"Dean," the angel repeats putting more pressure on his name, "I really don't."

"I believe you, Cas," Dean assures him, regretting again that he can't fucking look him in the eyes, because Dean has never been good at words, and although he's pretty sure that these words are totally on spot, still for Cas they seem not enough. His change of topic is a proof of that.

"I know I've done–" he begins, voice heavily lined with bitterness, but Dean won't have it.

"Cas!" he cuts in before his friend can keep on sulking. "Do we really need to talk about this now?"

"Then when?" Cas asks and Dean doesn't have an answer. Never, ideally, because he fears the conversation might end the same way it did the first time over. On the other hand, now Cas can't just poof out, for the first time Cas can't disappear and leave him. They're stuck together and surprisingly it can be an asset too. "When I kill Raphael… That is it, Dean. And I wouldn't bear parting with you like this."

Parting is not something Dean wants to talk or even think about, either. He's trapped in this impasse where he wants his autonomy back but he also wants Cas to stay with him – just _outside_ of him – and he can't have both; it's either this or E.T. goes home and forever seems like a mighty long time.

And for fuck's sake, he still can't look at him, which doesn't make things any easier.

"Well, I'm not having this conversation if I can't even look you in the eyes," he settles, pinching his nose.

"Then do it," Cas responds, shuffling closer. "I'm right here."

"I can't, Cas," he'll need to close his eyes if Cas makes another step towards him. He's already towering over him, casting shadow on the dusty road at his feet.

"Why?" the angel insists, as if he didn't know. As if they haven't talked about it _just_ now.

Dean can already feel the world start to tear at the seams, threatening with collapsing, as the sticky, heavy substance starts filling his lungs, then dries like cement and swells like ice. It flows from his stomach and it's not fear. It's want.

"Screw you, Cas!" Dean snaps, clenching his jaw and staring stubbornly at his palm where no beer appeared. He studies his life line and love line and every other line just to not look up. "You know why."

"Why?" now he's just provoking and if he really isn't reading his mind as he swore, he must not know Dean at all or know him too well. How else would he guess that Dean's this close to breaking, even if it means the universe shattering.

"Screw you!" the same words thunder across the plain, uncontrollable, growled from under his palms that cover his eyes, hide the view, hurt his eyeballs with the pressure and bring the promise of a descent seven rings of hell below as they shut his sight off.

He doesn't fall and later he'll be really fucking proud of himself. For now, he just knows that it isn't dark when he opens his eyes again, it's still the side of the road and still the old view from the Impala. The only thing that's changed is that the angel isn't there anymore.

* * *

><p>"Pull up your pants, boys, we're going on a road trip." Balthazar's yell drowned out the whoosh of his wings as he appeared in the middle of Bobby's kitchen, shaking Dean up from his half-nap over a bottle of bear and a pile of books.<p>

The hunter jumped up to his feet automatically, barely preventing the drink from spilling all over the ancient manuscripts. He had only drifted off for a minute, low on sleep for five long days of waiting on any news and vain searching for ways to track Cas or Raphael down – if the son of a bitch had hidden so well a fellow angel couldn't find them, what chances at finding him had they had? But still, they'd tried. And Dean had tried the hardest of them all, scanning thoroughly every piece of paper, trying out every promising-sounding spell and probably fucking up the universe in the process. After his forty years downstairs, he could only imagine what Cas had been going through every second of their delay.

"Where is he?" he demanded to know.

With a corner of his eye he noticed Sam entering the kitchen in a rush, A frustrated gasp escaped Dean's lips at the sight of him. There came a big talk where they didn't have time for it. Dean had been really hoping they'd manage to sneak out without stumbling onto his brother.

"Arizona," Balthazar replied. "I hope you're prepared."

"Yes, we are, take us there," Sam said, grabbing a bunch of weapons.

"You're not going, Sam," Dean protested suddenly.

"What?"

"You're staying here with Bobby, we've got this," he explained with more force, but he knew Sam wouldn't give up so easily. His younger brother didn't seem to care that his Wall could crumble any moment.

"Because of my Wall?" Sam's features twisted in an annoyed expression. "How many times do I have to repeat: I'm okay. So is the Wall."

"You _know_ what can happen if it gets scratched."

"Dean, I'm a hunter. You can't keep me in a safety bubble forever."

"Watch me," Dean shot at him provokingly, jaws clenched, stare unmoving.

"Of course, go on quipping like an old married couple," Balthazar's voice put them back in line. "In the meantime Castiel might be having his eyes plucked out. But please, there's no rush."

At the gruesome image set before them, both men reflected. The angel was right, every minute lessened the chances of finding Cas in one piece. Dean gave out a dissatisfied grunt, but there was no time for fighting. Maybe Sam had been right, maybe he couldn't protect him forever. He just didn't want his brother to turn into a catatonic, drooling mess, which seemed to be a difficult concept for Sam to grasp.

"Alright, let's go," Dean agreed, finally, hiding the angel blade in his jacket, watching Sam mirror his movements.

Suddenly they got swept off their feet and thrown into the oblivion – a sensation just as brief as it was unpleasant. And before they could brace themselves for the impact, their boots were back again on a solid ground, only much more arid and sandy, the blow stirred up clouds of dust.

They could have taken him anywhere: Heaven, Moon, center of a star. Dean was glad the angels somehow always took special interest in the United States and stuck to his motherland – that tended to make things much easier. That time they had chosen an abandoned warehouse somewhere in Arizona, dark shape towering ominously over the golden flat in the sunset.

"Before we attack, there is something you two should know," Balthazar began, but he didn't get the chance to finish, as Dean took over, pressing the binocular to his face.

"Something like that there are no guards?" he asked.

"Oh," the angel looked unpleasantly surprised. "That complicates things."

"You don't say."

"So they're either extremely cocky," Sam said without much hope, "or it's a trap."

"I'll risk betting on the latter," murmured Dean, eyeing the building angrily. "So, what's the plan?"

"Try the backdoor?" Sam threw in a half-assed proposition, resigned, but before either of them could come up with something better, they were disrupted by Balthazar's disappearance.

"Or we could send the angel in for a recon," Dean commented, raising his eyebrows.

Balthazar was back as quickly as he vanished and the brothers couldn't even say a word as they felt the angel's fingers pressed to their foreheads and they were teleported again, to the dark, musky interior of the building.

Dean braced himself for the attack, as soon as he realized where he was. But no one was there. Both brothers sent disoriented looks at the angel.

"What's going on? Where are they?" Sam barked in a low voice, as if he expected to have been set up. He probably did. His fingers tightened their grip on the angel blade's handle, as he took a step back.

"Like I said, this complicates things," Balthazar replied simply. "We're too late."

That was when Dean spotted the sprawled body on the ground, the light beige of the coat standing out in the darkness. Hands thrown out wide, legs twisted, clothes rugged and torn, painted with red.

"No!" Dean's shout rumbled echoing off the walls as he ran to the body. "Cas!"

"This is no good," the growing panic in Balthazar's voice sounded distant to Dean, whose palms were grabbing at the damn coat soaked from the pool of blood beneath him.

But there was something wrong with how Cas's body looked, all black and blue, throat sliced, dead, empty eyes staring ahead. And no dark ashes of scorched wings outspread over his shoulders, just plain ground.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean gasped out at the realization, relieved chuckle played in his mouth and he didn't swallow it down.

He stood up and left the corpse lying where it got dumped by Raphael, still warm, but completely lifeless. The image had already carved its way into his brain to haunt him for the years to come as another of many people he didn't save, as if it was his fault, although there was probably nothing he could have done to spare him the torture and return him to his family.

"It's not Cas," he explained to Sam whose eyes were still wide from shock. "Just a vessel."

"Oh," escaped Sam's mouth, as he was trying to digest what was happening. "Wait, so you knew about it, Balthazar?"

Both brothers turned to stare at the angel questioningly, demanding the answers.

"You got us here for no reason and–" he drifts off for a moment, because there is still a more important unknown in the equation. "So where the fuck is Cas? Raphael?"

None of this made sense. Though what mattered was that Cas was alive, seeing his vessel tortured and dead on the ground stirred something in Dean. Sure, the poor son of a bitch didn't deserve this end; he gave up everything for the war that wasn't his and they'd only let him suffer even more. But there was also a more selfish thought nagging as Dean's mind – to him Cas had always been his vessel. The blue eyes, the messy, dark hair, even that stupid, skewed tie. And now it was all gone.

But Cas wasn't dead, he reminded himself again.

"Yes, well, did you really think good, old Cassie didn't have a plan?"

"Yeah? And what was the plan?"

"A duel. Maybe didn't go exactly as we planned, but…"

The rest of his words drowned in a roll of thunder that must have echoed all the way to the shores of Japan. Dean felt his little brother tug at the sleeve of shirt, and they strolled, deafened and blinded in the dark, towards the exit. Although they had arrived there around noon, now the sky was completely black. The sun had disappeared, obscured by what Dean thought to himself were gigantic, raven wings. He wouldn't see his own hand if he dangled it in front of his nose, let alone the sandy plain spread before them.

They stood in the gates of the warehouse, clutching to each other, trying to make sense of what was happening. Dean had seen a lot in the decades of his existence: he'd seen monsters and demons and hell and the end of the world, but he'd never felt this terrified as when witnessing the black skies over Arizona. The air was perfectly still and quiet. It felt as if a black hole passed by the Earth and sucked the light and the sound and the atmosphere in, yet they were still breathing.

Suddenly, another thunder cut through the air, this time accompanied by a lightning so bright that when it died, Dean was sure his eyes had burned out.

"Balthazar!" he shouted, disturbing the stillness, "Balthazar!" he repeated, afraid that the angel wasn't there anymore, he couldn't feel his presence. He couldn't feel anything.

* * *

><p>"I'm right beside you, Dean," Cas breathes in a gentle encouragement and Dean's not sure how they ended up back in the same place they last left off a thousand miles before.<p>

Not even the landscape changed although he drove for long, long hours to clear his head. He spent that time thinking about vessels and faces and angels. Especially about one particular angel and he was extremely thankful that Cas didn't hear those thoughts, because mostly he pondered about that feeling that sucked the breath out of him and came out as a growl to scare the both of them off. They say you don't know what you have until you lose it. If appreciation requires a loss, then Dean has lost Cas more times than he's ever lost anything else.

There was that time when Cas was a stranger, who came in with wide eyes and went out with a bang of rebellion, having lost his righteous way, or maybe having found it. He taught Dean things, he gave up things for Dean and because of Dean he ended up broken.

Then there was a time when Cas was a friend and he stayed till the end. He fought his own brothers, he fought destiny and, when needed, he fought Dean too. He expired with a flash from his own chest just to throw fires at archangels and explode.

The longest of the times was when Cas was gone and Sam was gone too and Dean was alone. They all came back as strangers and the baggage drove them apart, left Dean trying to pick up the pieces and becoming different things in the process – things like vessels and Death. But by then Cas wasn't a stranger anymore and he didn't quite feel like a friend and if Dean ever suspected what it was, he never said a word, thinking of Cas's lips. If _profound bond_ was the closest definition he could get, then he just rolled with it.

With all the in-betweens Dean has lost the count of his losses, all he knows is that each time they hit stronger and brought grief deeper, slowly seeping in, along with the fear that this time it's forever. And it never was forever until now. Now it feels like Dean is all those beeping machines and twisted tubes of life support stuck into Cas, granting him some borrowed time that is now running out. Constantly running out.

This time: forever.

So if loss strikes up something more, then he better prepares for a broken heart.

Dean drove hours and months and years thinking about death and life or some other words with 'l', now the world looks like those hours never happened (and they probably didn't).

The sun still shines somewhere above, warm rays embracing his body, as he leans on the car. He knows that Cas is right beside him, he can feel the heat of his body close to him, he can hear his hissing breath near his ear and for a moment he wonders if angels need to breathe. He feels Castiel take another step towards him, nearly intruding his personal space, but not quite yet.

"I'm scared," Dean admits in a small voice, swallowing hard. The back of his neck starts to ache from the unnatural angle, his head turned away from Cas and towards the tips of his boots.

They're trying again. Cas apologized for pushing, yet they're trying again. As Dean drove and drove thinking about death, he thought about never seeing Cas again; literally seeing. The last chance, he had to remind himself, and he is too much of a coward to even try to overcome that stupid, silly, paralyzing fear, though it doesn't cost him a thing.

This time it's Dean's idea.

"I'm–" he tries to say something more, but it only turns to whimper as he feels a brush of skin in the back of his palm. He has to force himself to be quiet as the brush turns to a grasp, Cas's fingers gently but tightly hold his wrist.

"I know, Dean." When Cas speaks, his lips are much closer than Dean expected. "But it's all in your head."

"Everything here is in my head," Dean corrects him and Cas agrees.

"Exactly," Cas tips his head. "Every single thing. That's why you can control that too."

"Yeah, I can," Dean murmurs unconvinced. They stand unmoving and Dean can almost imagine it, Cas with his trench-clad butt pressed against the Impala, one hand extended to the wrist, remaining there, the slight breeze playing with the stray locks of his hair. "Just–" he holds the thought, he realizes how stupid it sounds before he lets it slip out, but Cas wants to know.

"Just?"

"I mean, if you looked at yourself–"

"I can't see myself in the place you see us in right now," Cas responds and then reminds him again: "Out of your thoughts, right?"

"Right," Dean agrees, but then he shrugs, as decides: "then screw it and come here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, come here," he repeats.

He doesn't notice any change, he doesn't feel Cas storming in through his mind's barricades, rummaging through his memories. The only thing that happens is Cas's palm slipping off his wrist, then Cas moving slightly next to him, hands padding his clothes, probably inspecting his form.

"I'm Cas," Cas says after a moment, which is weird, because Dean expected something more along 'I'm in Jimmy', but he appreciates that at least this one reference – a shorthand really – Cas gets.

"Okay." With a deep inhale and no more excuses, Dean turns his head towards the angel and then the whole body follows when he discovers that he is, indeed, Cas. "Cas," he sighs out, relieved, his mouth shapes into a smile.

He struggles not to hang onto any part in particular, he just takes him all in: not bruised, not green-eyed, not dead. It's been forever since he last saw him like this, although it's been just a few days since Cas came to him.

"Hello, Dean," matched up with the face, the words fall so naturally like they were all Dean has been waiting for all this time.

"Hey, Cas." Fully aware of the soft, goofy smile that brightens up his face, Dean can't help it even if he wanted to, and he doesn't want to. "Looking good," he manages a quip.

The corners of Cas's lips curl up as he nods. They stay quiet for a while, enjoying the moment of simple companionship. Dean doesn't even spare a thought to how Cas works, how he's out there raking the universe in the search of Raphael and at the same time he's here with him, sitting on the imagined Impala, with his thigh pressed along Dean's. Dean knows Cas is so much more than he is, much more than the heatwave flowing from that friction of Cas's trench and Dean's jeans, through the hunter's entire body. He's much more than the blue irises turning dark in the rays of setting sun and the oranges casting shadows on his face. Dean didn't even notice when the sun began to set and he suspects Cas had to have something to do with it, a liberty that should freak him out, but doesn't.

It's fucking cheesy though, that light painting everything the romantic hue of orange. Cas is still as close, right in Dean's personal bubble, but Dean's glad he's had a few years to get used to it. Only this time he's not sure if the closeness can be blamed only on Cas's little quirk nor if he wants to chastise him for it. Instead, he mourns the missing warmth of Cas's fingers on his skin.

Cas's mouth moves like he's preparing to say something, but he settles on wetting his lips with a slip of his tongue and Dean ponders where he got that from, before he needs to lick his own lips.

Dean thinks about death and life and the other words with 'l'. His head shoots forward, before he knows what he's doing. The distance is small and it closes with their mouths colliding. Cas doesn't pull away, though for a moment Dean was afraid that he would. His lips are softer than Dean expected and they're moving, following Dean's, and Dean's lips are forced to open, making a way for the tip of the angel's tongue, which for a heartbeat leaves Dean dumbfounded, but then he joins the play; his fingers tangle in the hairs on the back of Cas's head, the other hand on his cheek. He feels Cas's own palm mirroring the gesture, cupping Dean's face tenderly and the hunter isn't even sure anymore that all this is real.

When they break the kiss eventually, Cas's face is still the same, only his cheeks are now flushed with red and he's slightly out of breath. They both are.

"What the fuck," Dean whispers, astonished, his right hand lingering on Cas's neck for a while longer before it drops.

"Not what I'd say now." A wide grin spreads on the angel's face and Dean has never seen him smile this wide, all teeth. And man, does he look beautiful. "But yeah."

Not what Cas would say, but Dean has no idea what to say and neither does Cas, so they remain quiet for what is an infinity, but feels like a second – the grand moments always do. And then they end.

"Dean, we need to talk." The whole sappiness has escaped Cas's voice, but the hunter still craves his lips as they move around the words he speaks.

"Yeah, right."

Abruptly brought back to the relative reality, he gathers himself back together quickly. Still he needs to physically distance himself from the guy if he's to do anything other than tasting him, because tasting him feels so good. He pushes himself off the hood and takes three steps before he can turn to face him.

"Okay, listen Cas, you fucked up," he fires right away with nothing but blatant honesty in his words, but maybe with a more empathic note warming his voice. There's no point in going easy on Cas, if they can make it fast instead and get it over with. "You did."

After they're done with this, they could possibly go back to kissing. They've long years of catching up to do in a half-limited portion of time.

Cas's eyes don't stray from Dean's, even if they glow with shame.

"I know, Dean, I was trying to do–"

"What you thought was right," Dean finishes for him. "Yeah, you've said that already. I've newsflash for you, buddy: half of the time what we thought was the right thing to do turns out to be the opposite."

"Dean, you need to understand, I did not have any other choice," he begs and then adds: "at least at the time it seemed that I didn't."

Dean's thoughts wander briefly to Balthazar weapons and how the guy kept them in secret under the cover of his faked death. He's glad he isn't the only one who's failed Cas. They all fucked up in the smaller and bigger ways and they've all paid for it.

"Okay, let's try again: I get that part, Cas," he puts more force into his words as he takes a step forward; now he's the one begging for understanding. "But I also get that this whole Free Will thing is brand new for you and that it can be overwhelming. God knows I know. So you picked your path and kept going down and down… Lie after lie, right? But in the end you made the right call. You didn't go through with opening Purgatory."

"I almost did. Had I found it sooner."

"But you didn't, alright?" Dean feels his arm reach for Cas's shoulder as he lessens the distance again. "That's what matters. Now, since you insisted on this exchange of feelings, I'll give you mine."

Here comes the hard part, he thinks, the confessions starting with "I" like all those support groups for emotionally constipated teach: I felt hurt, I felt betrayed, I advise we move on. _I_ readies himself to spit it all out just as Cas readies himself for hits.

"I felt like the ground slipped from under my feet when you came and told me that you've lied all along."

Now he surprises even himself with the honesty, because he's never the one to put his feelings into pretty words and metaphors and Castiel's expression looks pained, like the sincerity of an _I_ punched him in a stomach harder than any blameful _yous_ ever could.

"I'm–" he begins, but Dean doesn't let him finish.

"I mean, you knew all this time, about Sam? About his soul? And Samuel? I could really do with less worries and less quality time spent on kneeling before Crowley. If only you had told us sooner."

Going through it all again feels like checking off boxes on the to do list and in a way it's relieving, because he won't have to go back to them anymore. What's done is done.

I advise we move on.

"I'm so sorry about it Dean, I was ashamed–" the rest of the sentence drowns in the angel's heavy breath.

"Apologies accepted," Dean says softly, and he can see by his reaction it wasn't something that Cas expected. But Cas is going off to Heaven soon, forever. "I forgive you, Cas. We all fuck up from time to time," he adds quickly to let off some of the awfully official vibe.

It looks like the whole weight of the universe fled Cas's face and shoulders; his body relaxes visibly, the creases on his brow smoothen, and Dean can almost see the remnant of his long lost, angelic innocence flare in his eyes.

"Thank you, Dean," he says, grateful as if these were the only thing he needed to be granted absolution from the sins committed in the name of war.

For the first time it feels like Cas is ready to depart. Not until now did the inevitable seem so real. Like if it was to happen right away, Cas would be okay with it. Dean still wouldn't. Sure, it feels lighter to have that chapter closed and burnt with just a bitter aftertaste left on their tongues, but this isn't about giving and receiving forgiveness. It's about losing Cas. Cas whom Dean has needed all along, even if he realized it so late. In desperation his mind irrationally starts seeking for a bone to pick like for a lifesaver, as if it could change a damn thing.

"What I won't forgive you," he begins calmly just to progress into bellow, his palm withdrawing from Cas's collar, "is that then you just vanished! Puff!" his hand withdraws from Cas's collar to join the other one in an exaggerated flail that's supposed to illustrate Cas's exit. "Disappeared for weeks. _For weeks_. And not even a word?"

Cas seems utterly knocked off his tracks by Dean's sudden outburst.

"You said–"

"I know what I said. I told you to get out, geez, Cas, it's like you don't even know me," he rambles on, letting his tone down a bit. He's not exactly angry, but he never in fact had a chance to let those weeks of worry off his chest, so why not now, while they're still in the sharing mood. "I was worried about you, I thought you were dead!" Then quieter he adds: "I prayed, Cas. Every day, I prayed."

All this time Cas has withheld his stare, now his eyes shift down to his feet.

"I know, Dean, I did hear you. Even after Raphael captured me…"

"So why didn't you come?"

"Because I couldn't look you in the eyes. I thought… I thought that in a long run you would be better off with me dead."

"De– what?" Dean is sure he heard wrong, he must have, or the made-up sound waves are playing tricks on him. "What the hell are you talking about? You said you heard my prayers."

"Dean, you will be fine without me," Cas changes the topic, but he really doesn't, he just knows Dean well, after all.

The cold chill that runs through Dean is certainly not caused by the cool, night air left by the longest sunset in the history that ended unnoticed as rapidly as it started and the dusk has covered them with its sticky gloom. The sky lacks the stars. Cas is talking bullshit again. Cas has no idea what it'll be like without Cas and Dean just keeps getting colder.

Dean could say something. He could ask Cas to shut up. He could prove him wrong, because he is wrong. He could even kiss him again and think that would be really nice and then maybe the night wouldn't get to them. Because Dean gets the weather now and the times of day and they're not Cas's doing, so maybe if Dean kissed Cas again, the sun would rise already and paint everything pink and make it hot again. But Dean doesn't kiss Cas and they are left with the icy, desert night.

"Oh, ask the weather how great I'll be without you."

* * *

><p>It wasn't always dark, sometimes the fight took a form of northern lights over the Equator, sometimes of fireworks that would blast above the clouds and shoot down on cities like burning meteors. Sometimes there were storms and the rains of fire. The showdown kept moving across the whole earth, from time to time moving to other dimensions – those were the moments when the world was peaceful, but they never lasted long.<p>

"We're probably doomed anyway," were Balthazar's last words before he disappeared, having dropped them at Bobby's, without any idea what to do next.

Tucked away in Sioux Falls they watched TV news, broadcasting the inexplicable occurrences across the globe. There wasn't anything they could do to aid Cas in his fight – the clash of the titans was way out of their league. Everything was in the nerdy angel's hands now, win or lose, the fate of the entire world lied heavy on his celestial, vessel-less shoulders. There was also little they could do to save people. They called a bunch of hunters to give them a heads up on what was happening and then they could only wait. The victims were many: some from the road accidents when the angels suddenly turned off the sun, some from spontaneous fires and other supernatural cataclysms.

Then there happened the carnage in the north of Brazil, when the dueling angels got carried away and fell into the atmosphere. The three hunters watched the footage with their jaws dropped, eyes wide with terror. It felt unreal, more like a screening of a catastrophic blockbuster than a thing that was happening in the real world, to real people. The whole fuckton worse than anything that Lucifer brought down.

"Damn them both to Hell," Dean choked out, drowning another glass of Jack. He started doubting if letting the Apocalypse come wouldn't have been a better choice. Millions had died anyway…

But ultimately the world didn't end. Seven days after Arizona, peace seemed to have finally arrived for good. People rejoiced, the Winchesters didn't. They didn't have the luxury to rest nor to celebrate until they found out who had won, and there was no one to give them the answer. They didn't hear a word from Cas nor Balthazar, though they tried to summon them. On the bright side, Raphael didn't contact them either, nor did he let Lucifer and Michael out. Somehow Dean had a feeling that if Cas had lost, they would have found out pretty quickly.

"So what now? We go back to hunting Wendigos?" he mused, staring at his burger indifferently. The recent events had taken away his appetite completely. He'd probably lost good ten pounds waiting for that hell to end.

"Do you think they're all dead?" Sam pondered from his spot on a couch. "Raphael and Cas? Balthazar, too?"

Dean rose his eyes to his brother. The man looked tired, the week had been hard for all of them, but it had taken special toll on Sam, who ended up convulsive on the floor twice. Those had been the longest minutes in Dean's life, as he had tried to snap him out of it, but they had lasted days for Sam. Each time when he'd come back he'd been silent for hours. Still, he considered himself lucky that while all that shit'd been happening his wall didn't crumble completely.

"Sounds good to me," Dean responded, surprising his brother.

"Oh, really?" Sam's eyebrows arched to his hairline. "After all this running around and searching for him?"

Dean rubbed at his eyes with his palm, with the other one he pushed the burger away. He'd decided the bite wouldn't even make it past his throat.

"Sam, have you _seen_ what's happened?" he asked as if it explained everything.

Of course he didn't want Cas to be dead. His absence had left a hole somewhere inside him, whether it be in heart or in his soul, that only waited to be fulfilled again. But then Dean realized that maybe he'd be able to live with that hole, after all it hadn't been the first, nor probably the last one. What they witnessed had practically been the end of the world. Again. Dean'd found out quickly that armageddons tended to leave him quite desensitized. There was a chance that Raphael was dead and that it all was over, that they'd get a shot at normality at last. So if Cas's life had been the price? Not like he could do anything about it anyway.

* * *

><p>Dean's never been a poster boy for sober driving. There always seemed to be a certain amount of beer flowing through his veins, possibly even a bit more than that during his darker months. But he would never <em>drunk<em> drive, of course. And obviously he wouldn't drink directly behind the wheel. Not in the real world. But here and now he could come with a tag: _don't try it at home_, because he makes the rules here. So if he wants to drive 70 miles per hour, sipping cold beer from a bottle in his hand and sing _Highway to Hell_ at the top of his lungs, he is as hell gonna do that. Especially since he finally mastered the art of the hocus-pocusing fun stuff out of thin air, right into his palm.

"Dude, this is better than Matrix!" he exclaimed the first time he succeeded, just to get a resigned "I won't even try to pretend I understand," from Cas.

The beer has it all: texture, perfect temperature, and most importantly – the taste. He might not feel thirst here, but it doesn't in any way weaken the experience of drinking beer. Same goes for food, and what's more, Dean's one hundred percent sure all the pie in this world wouldn't make him fat and flabby.

_Living easy, living free._

It would be a total win-win for that wee tiny downside that it isn't real. After all this is over and gone, he'll probably need months to readjust to a regular reality. He is the king here, the god, and it's gotten into his blood too quickly: he rules the world and he's loving it. He's not even falling anymore, it's been so long since he last was stuck in the darkness that he's close to forgetting what it is. Somehow having forgotten makes the thing scarier; must be true what they say about the fear of the unknown.

But who thinks about darkness in the bright daylight.

"I don't think drinking while driving is wise," the angel's voice drowns almost completely in Dean's high-pitched howl, yet the man hears it and throws his head back in a loud guffaw.

"Yeah, well, not here," he shrugs, lowering down the volume, and hands Cas a full bottle of beer he's just made-up. "Never in the real world, cross my heart." He might _occasionally_ have a deathwish, but he's never had a death-and-kill-of-everybody-else-on-the-road-you-irresponsible-piece-of-trash-wish.

"You're really enjoying yourself," Cas observes, taking the beer from him, but not moving his eyes from Dean's smiling face.

"Well yeah, what's not to enjoy?" he answers quickly, turning his head to Cas. "Not a worry in the world," he adds melodically.

There is also something else horrifying in the forgetting itself. More often than not Dean finds himself forgetting about the important things like Sam and Bobby and the real world – the one with the alphas' recruitment programs and the big, bad Momma taking a road trip to the surface, whatever her intentions might be. Dean forgets these things, because he doesn't want to remember them. Because it's much easier not to remember them. Remembering means caring and caring means anxiety – especially when saving the real world lies on your shoulders. But it isn't Dean's world, there are no Apocalypses in his world.

"Though, I'll admit, it is kind of uneventful," he muses. "I think I'll maybe think up a werewolf or two to fight. Or a wendigo – they're pretty entertaining."

For a second Cas stares at Dean like he's an alien – hunting wendigos is probably a favorite pastime of nobody ever, even if they're untouchable. But then Cas huffs out a quiet chuckle, as his eyes soften.

"It's good, Dean," he says. "I'm glad that you can have some peace of mind here. You deserve it."

"Yeah," he murmurs and then asks, curious: "do _you_ have a peace of mind here, Cas?"

Cas doesn't answer right away. Dean watches him raise the bottle to take a sip, the tip of his tongue slips out swiftly as the glassy neck nears his mouth, the soft lips embrace it as it slides in, cold and wet and Dean can think of at least one other thing he'd like see inside that mouth Ashamed of his thoughts, he has to force himself to take his eyes off that bottle and those lips and Cas's Adam's apple bobbing up and down as the angel swallows. He glues his eyes back to the road, still half-mesmerized and half-hard.

"I do," Cas answers finally and Dean needs a moment to remember what the question was. "I like coming here when I can allow myself to give you my full attention."

"Oh," Dean gasps, holding on to the last words, "so I have your full attention now?"

"There's a ritual I cannot perform until sunrise."

"So you're mine until sunrise?" He immediately cusses himself for the wording. On the other hand, at the – very long – moment, Cas is his everything anyway.

"Yes." A smirk plays on the angel's face as he answers.

"What's the ritual?"

The smile suddenly disappears, and a cold professionalism takes its place. Dean regrets the question right away.

"I think it's finally something that'll locate Raphael," Cas explains. "Retrieving it, as well as certain essential ingredients was… problematic."

Dean feels a tight knot twisting in his stomach and it makes him want to puke. Indefinite has just become finite and its finiteness came like a slap in the face, too soon, too close, the end of the road without the warning signs. All this years him almost made him forget there was ever supposed to be an ending to this, this has been always and forever. And now it isn't anymore.

_So this is it_, rings in his head, _this is it._

He doesn't say it, because it's the prelude to the goodbye. And he's got Cas's full attention now.

Another hue to the dangers of forgetting, the one that comes with the denial.

"You know, I've had this idea," he begins, wide grin creeping onto his face. "You're gonna love it. It'll be so grand."

Cas shoots him the same weird look as before, maybe a little bit more concerned, but Dean just keeps grinning, as he lets go of the cornfields around and pulls over.

"We'll have it so good," he repeats. "All those lifetimes and I've never thought about it before. Why haven't I thought about it before, Cas?"

"About what, Dean?" Cas asks, following Dean out of the car.

Dean thought about an empty plain for a while, but then he gives his vote to the woods instead and the trees spur out around them, on both sides of the road. They grow broad and tall, casting nice, cool shades down on them.

"It's like I wasted all of those lifetimes on the road that led nowhere," Dean keeps talking, letting the flora bloom around them, the flowers, the bushes, the grass grows tall and wild until the crickets' singing gets carried by the wind. "You know, Cas? I've wasted my life on the road. I couldn't see that all those roads led nowhere, there is never an end to them. But now we're gonna have it so good." He clasps Cas's palm between his and Cas is quiet, he just stares and stares like Cas does, and Dean doesn't care how dumbstruck he is by Dean's enthusiasm, because Dean's had his moment of clarity, if a thousand years too late. "We'll have it oh, so good, Cas, you and I."

He sees it in Cas's eyes, the moment he spots it over his shoulder – white walls and red roof grown out among the trees. Their home.

"No more roads," he declares.

He clashes their mouths together in case Cas wants to say something like _you're crazy, Dean_; he forbids him to say that. How could he even say that if he's the one that made Dean this way: stupid angel gave him all these lives and all those miles of the universe wrapped up in blue paper with a ribbon of Dean on top. He left him alone with forever and not even a gravity to hold him, although he knew Dean is afraid to fly. Then he taught him to forget and Dean did and he does all over again, and he taught him to feel and to not-feel at the same time and so he does and he doesn't and he just is, and it might have taken him thirty one years and two eternities to learn, but now he knows that he is Dean and Dean is alive.

And now stupid Cas is trying to take it all: the road and the infinity away and then call him crazy.

They're out of breath; the only air supply they have is what flows from one set of lungs to the other, but they don't need to breathe and they are both just one set of lungs anyway. They're creatures of teeth and lips and tongues and that's all they are, warm and soft and biting; they're playing a game of exploring one another with touch, with taste.

"Do you feel it, Cas?" Dean breaks off to let the sweet air between them, when he's sure Cas has forgotten too what Dean is other than alive. "Do you feel me?"

"Yes," growls Cas, rushing for more, his hands even hungrier than his mouth.

"Can you feel how I feel?"

"Yes," he repeats impatiently. "Yes, I feel how you feel. I see all you see." Cas presses hard against Dean, rubbing his crotch on his thigh. "I want. I want you…"

"Good," Dean whispers to his ear, his teeth bite his earlobe, his tongue slides down all the way to the collar, lips burn against the stubble. "We'll have it so good."

He needs the damn coat off and the damn jacket too. When he pushes Cas back, the angel's legs get tangled in the haphazard pile of clothes, stripping him off his grace, as he stumbles backwards, expecting the hard metal of the Impala to smash his spine. But then it's Dean's time to teach him about the gravity he had to make up and they both lay in the dense void for a heartbeat, before falling down on the double bed. The bedroom is dim and bathed in the candlelight and Dean wanted to show Cas the bedroom last, but at least now he's spared the chore of making up the other rooms.

He doesn't plan to leave the bedroom anyway. He's got a whole new body to explore, he's got Cas sans the coat and he's bigger than he expected with endless layers to peel off. He starts with the shirt and he makes the buttons pop off, like his finger is a razor blade cutting through the threads with one long slide. He begins again from there, his hands joined by his tongue, from the belly button across the skin stretched on his muscles until their lips meet again.

"That's convenient," Cas comments on the bedroom, not sparing it even a glance and Dean is glad, because he didn't exactly have time to go into details like walls and floor and air outside the bed. There are other details that he needs Cas to examine and every single one of them is on Dean's body. The body's still new for Cas; for the Cas that rebuilt it, for the Cas that is wearing it – it has a Dean inside of it and is alive in the ways that the newborn skin of the corpse and the marble skin of the vessel could never be.

He needs Cas to go over every scar marring his skin, he needs him to lick every damn freckle in the galaxies of his shoulders and his ass. Bruising him and healing and breaking him with the gentlest touch

"I told you it'll be grand," Dean purrs against Cas's chest, feeling his hands where his pants used to be, sliding up and down his thighs, while his lips savior every inch of his chest. "Just take it all."

_Take it all_, he offers himself with the entire universe, pushing it all into his hands like he's already given him his body. He's giving it to him again. Naked and trembling with desire for the only thing that he can't have wholly, which is trying to slip him now that he's finally brave enough to reach for it. He's got his fingers biting into his skin, tongue licking off the saltiness, he's got him taking, he's got him wanting.

"Good, that's good," he pants, thinking of that beer bottle, one of the few things he isn't forgetting. He thinks of those lips and that flash of the tongue and he wants them exactly where they should be. "Please."

He feels himself being pushed into the mattress, head hitting the pillow, with one swift movement there's a body towering over him and when the tower leans down, it's him who is crumbling. Cas's mouth is warm and wet on his dick and the tongue is teasing, making Dean's fingers twitch tangled in his hair, his lungs are out of air.

"God, Cas," he gasps, "I want you, I want you so bad."

"Hold that," Cas orders, his lips moving away, leaving, just like Cas is leaving, Dean thinks, and he doesn't want him to. Dean's fists hold onto his hair so hard it must hurt, but he's not letting him go. "Dean."

"Stay, Cas." The tears sting in his eyes and he feels stupid, Cas isn't going anywhere, not now. Not ever. "Stay," he repeats as loud as his narrowed throat lets him, he prays _stay, stay, stay._

"I'm here, Dean," Cas's throaty tremble reminds him, but he still prays. He needs him inside, he needs him closer. "I've wanted you for so long," Cas confesses, pausing to take the whole of him in through his eyes.

"Stay, forever," Dean utters finally. "Inside me."

"I'm not inside you yet," the angel chuckles, teasing his hole with a finger slick with lube or oil or something else, Dean doesn't care what.

"With me, here," he moans, firmer. "Don't ever leave."

Cas stops mid-movement to stare at Dean, perplexed, his face alters with the spark of realization that these words are more than just the affectionate sex talk.

"You don't know what you're saying." The change in his voice is so rapid it feels like a slap on the cheek.

He might be broken and shivering, but his mind has never been this clear. Who said it must ever end? Who said the triumph must be also the great defeat? There is no haste, it can still be forever. Dean's body and Cas's grace are one and they might remain one as it was – as it must be – written somewhere, on an ancient stone like the Ten Commandments; their history must unfold to be sang in the Gospel of Dean and Castiel and to stand on its way would be a sin. The angel and the Righteous Man cannot be sinners.

"You'll take care of me. We'll be kings," he tempts, pushes himself up and drapes his arm around Cas's neck to whisper: "we'll be gods."

It doesn't matter that Cas seems less than pleased by the idea and is questioning Dean's mental state again, Dean doesn't question it anymore although he used to. He used to think he was gone beyond repair, now he knows he's been etched anew on the good old canvas.

"Two gods in love, so… so in love," he goes on, the words with 'l' slipping off his tongue with ease, like a beautiful lie, although it's the most blatant of truths. "I'm so in love with you, Cas."

He can see Cas shatter under the weight of his confession, heaving above him. With a hiss of his tongue trying desperately to shush him, to make him speak no more, but he does.

"I could love you for all eternities, Cas, it will be so good, our own peace of mind…"

The rest of his tales of forever come out as muffled sound, Cas's palm sealing his lips says that the angel can't take them no more.

"Shut up," he growls, his arms force Dean back to the mattress, his free hand orders his thighs to elevate. "Shut up, Dean."

Still gentle, but with less finesse, Cas starts circling Dean, his lips pay tribute to his body, kissing and licking and nabbing every reachable inch of his stars-spattered skin. Their groans resound in symphony every time their dicks stroke each other.

"Don't you say that," the angel's command comes out as a plea, when he enters his man. Their bodies dance together to the same steady rhythm of Dean's whimpers exploding with every thrust. "Don't you ever say that to me," he moans into Dean's collarbone, his free hand trapped between their boiling bodies, working on breaking Dean in every unholy way.

Dean's fingers dig into stone hard muscles on the angel's back for something solid to hold on to. They tangle into his hair, tug it, stroke it, until Cas has no choice but to let his mouth fall down to his mouth in exchange for the seal of his hand. He's frantic to catch his tongue as he's nearing the edge, _s'okay, s'okay, I love you, I love you_ _forever_.

His eyes that've been wide open to swallow the living image of Cas, now shut, the reverence of his litany slips into an ecstatic cry; the orgasm rushes like a white current up his spine shredding his nerves, tearing him into pieces and dragging the shards of him up above.

The white light has a distinct hue of blue and it smells blue, too. Then it ceases at once and he is not where he was just a moment ago. He's standing in the broad sunlight: must be late, autumn afternoon, there are dead leaves covering the grass with a thin coat. It's a garden. He's been there once before. There is a moving man a few feet away, he's making swift sweeps across the lawn, raking leaves into a big pile. He knows this man with his whole heart and that heart is now pounding with overwhelming regret; he doesn't want to do this. Yet at the same time he's yearning to speak to the man, be seen by him. It burns, this longing – it burns in his chest and in his abdomen. It hurts with the desire and it hurts with helplessness – and he knows the word for it, he's known it always, long before he could feel this kind of _love_. He came here with a mission, but its importance faded for a while. All that matters is that mundane monotony of raking leaves, the peacefulness of the simple act. He stands there for a long time, invisible. His stomach churns. He hears name _Castiel_ being called from behind in an annoyingly familiar accent. He turns.

The sun's out. It's a cold day near the end of January, but he does not feel the cold, he just sees the snow under his feet. What he feels instead is the wetness on his face, salty trails streaming down his cheeks – he's crying. Choking on his own sobs that are stuck in his throat and don't want to let go. But most of all he feels the excruciating ache in his heart, which he could take for a heart attack if he didn't know better. It has nothing to do with his physical health. He's invisible to the people passing him in the alley, but some of them still turn their heads in his direction, instinctively, like they could sense an angel weeping there. But none of these people could make the pain go away. The blame is entirely his, there are words still ringing in his ears: _you damn liar!_ He feels sick, the nausea rising in his stomach and forcing his way out – he gets bent in half to throw up in the corner. Then he stands back up again.

There's a fireball storming right at him and he dives down all the way to the ground of burning charcoal. He reaches out with one of his limbs to destroy the row of demons barricading his ways. They squirm in the pure white, then disintegrate with ear piercing screech. One flap of his jagged wings raises him high, high above the battlefield, where he lefts his brethren fighting. The prime directive was to retrieve and deliver the soul that's writhing hidden inside of his chest. Its brightness is blinding even to an angel, the glow makes even the black, charred scars on its surface look pale in comparison. They are just scratches, it wouldn't require much to scab them and peel them off, but it is not his task to repair the hell-marred soul, his mission now is to repair the body. He prays that the wounds will heal with time and not fester. He flies out through the Gates of Hell.

It's sunny again, laughter of children playing in the park hums in the background. They're sitting on separate benches. He feels his own mouth stretch in a smile to give escape to that new, tingly sensation that gathered in his chest in a single short-lived jolt at something the man said. That brave, bright soul is still full of that tingly sensation – joy. Even if it's buried deep, deep down under the scars…

_Enough!_

A voice thunders from all directions at once and it terrifies him to the core. The park's gone, so are the benches. Everything is gone and forgotten. Nothing exists, but the terror and darkness and silence and nothing. He cannot think, he cannot remember, he cannot live.

He's dead.

The darkness is death; it's endless and absolute. It stretches from the beginning of time to its end and devours it. It turns the universe to dust and dust to nothing and nothing into him. And he is death.

The king, the god is no more.

* * *

><p>Cas came to Dean in a dream. It was one of those dreams when you wake up inside a dream, just like it was the first time Cas had come to him. He was standing in Bobby's kitchen, looking exactly the same as always: trenchcoat and tie and Jimmy Novak. It wasn't the first time Dean had dreamt about Cas, only usually those had been nightmares where he exploded, sometimes when Dean's brain had been generous, it would be a memory from the night after the brothel from years ago. Sometimes they hadn't been memories but the backseat of the Impala… It took Dean a moment to realize that something was off and when he did, his eyes shone bright. He didn't dream Cas up.<p>

"Am I dreaming you up?" he made sure nevertheless, to which Cas shook his head, declining. "You're alive?"

"Yes, I'm alive. You seem surprised." The corner of Cas's lip rose in a lopsided smile.

"What the hell happened?" There was no anger in his voice, mostly curiosity. He wanted to hear the whole story from Cas's perspective, he needed to know how he survived and if what he saw before him was real. "Your vessel–"

"Jimmy is dead," Cas confirmed quietly, "so is his daughter, Claire." He made a pause to let it sink in, before he added even more bitterly: "And any other vessel that shared my bloodline. Raphael murdered them all."

"But that means–"

"That I'll never be able to take on a vessel and walk the earth," he cut in. "Not ever," he emphasized, as if any emphasis was needed – it only fell even heavier on Dean's chest.

"Can't you just resurrect them?" The idea seemed so simple when it sparked in Dean's head. "You're an angel, angels do that."

Humorless laugh escaped Castiel's mouth.

"That would require retrieving the host's soul, but–" Cas drifted off and swallowed hard. His lips moved a few times, before any sound came out of them, like he couldn't speak the words, like he was ashamed of what his brother was capable of. "Raphael devoured them," he muttered finally, with his stare glued to the floor.

"Dev–" Dean's eyes grew wide with shock. Murdering people was one thing, but sucking their souls in? Preventing them from going to heaven and… well, exactly, what happened to them? He didn't want to ponder on it, it only made him feel nauseous. Besides, there was a more pressing matter standing in front of him. "So what now? You're going back to Heaven?" he sucked in breath sharply as he understood: "Is this a goodbye?"

To his surprise the angel turned his back to him, his eyes glanced through the window into the darkness outside.

"I wish I could, Dean," Dean could see his knuckles go white as he pressed them hard to the cupboard's edge.

"I don't understand?"

"Raphael isn't dead," Cas explained, facing him again. "I defeated him, but I couldn't kill him. He is weakened immensely now and hiding from me."

"You need me to help you locate him? Last time he-"

"No," Cas cut him off, "I need something more."

"Anything, Cas."

"You shouldn't offer before you know what I'm asking of you."

"Okay…" Dean said slower, glancing at him cautiously. "Shoot."

"When Raphael forced me out of my vessel, he was probably aware I wouldn't be able to kill him in my true form. Balthazar was supposed to rescue Jimmy, but it was already too late. When Raphael annihilated my vessels it wasn't out of spite, not mainly. He needed me vessel-less so I can't kill him, or track him. It's difficult for me to even stay on Earth without it."

"Yeah, I get that part. So you need us to end him for you."

"Dean, he's weak but not _that_ weak."

"Oh, thanks for having faith in us."

Cas huffed out a small chuckle. His tiny smile reminded Dean of the park bench after Samhain. He had been the first person to make Cas smile, Dean thought, and now, he was the last, probably.

"So what exactly do you want from me?" The uncertainty slowly started drawing out his patience.

"I need you to let me enter your body," Cas fired out on one breath.

Dean almost burst out laughing, because firstly: the wording. He regained his composure under the completely serious look Cas sent him. But it didn't add up, he thought, unless Cas in fact meant sex. What about the bloodlines?

"Yes, it's not ideally," Cas began when Dean presented him his doubts, "because you're not my true vessel. Normally I would get automatically rejected."

"But?"

"But I remade you. When I pulled you out of Hell, I rebuilt your body wholly. I, figuratively speaking, stitched you up with my own grace. In doing so, I incidentally made you more akin to myself than any other vessel. It won't contain me forever, but should last for long."

"Wow," is all Dean managed to choke out, slightly overwhelmed. "Is that where the profound bond came from?" he added after a moment.

"No, that's because you are my best friend who deeply influenced my entire existence," Cas explained with a casual tone, but then his features darkened as his eyes pierced right into Dean's. "I know I'm asking for a lot, Dean, and I would never ask you for it if I had any other choice. But I don't."

The silence fell between them, as Cas still kept staring right into Dean's eyes the way he always did, his irises almost black in the darkness of the dreamt kitchen. He did ask for a lot and it wasn't a request Dean would ever expect from him. Especially not after all those months of lying – he was asking Dean to trust him with his life and body. And after that year when Dean had fought for the exact same thing with Michael – only it wasn't the same. This was Cas.

"Okay," he said finally, his voice slightly caught in his throat. "Alright, I can do it."

"No, Dean, don't decide now," Cas rushed to stop him. "Think it through, talk to your brother."

Dean shook his head.

"What will you do if I change my mind?"

"I have no idea," Cas admitted slowly, "but it is your choice, Dean. And let me know when you've decided."

"Alright," Dean agreed. He felt the end of the dream approaching quickly. "Cas, wait!"

Cas rose his head to look at Dean again. The hunter had nothing to say, he wasn't sure what he even could say. He just reached with his hand to Cas's shoulder and squeezed it tightly, to feel Castiel's solidity for what to all his knowledge was the last time, even if it was only a dream. He sent Cas a small smile, which the angel's lips reciprocated.

The next second he was sitting on the couch in the empty room, fully awake.

* * *

><p><em>You're gonna not talk to me ever?<em>

He wonders if Cas is dead or just quiet. Dean himself obviously isn't dead, because he isn't in Heaven; and he is Cas, so Cas can't be dead. He can't know how long it is that he's quiet now. But he knows it is too long. Or it isn't. But Dean is calling him and calling and his throat he doesn't have is sore from calling him.

Cas must be angry, because Dean is a bad man who does bad stuff sometimes. Stuff like going where he's not supposed to go. He knows that he knows some of Cas's memories he isn't allowed to know. They are Cas's after all. Like he must have some memories that Cas isn't allowed to know, he just doesn't remember those memories now. He thinks there are too many memories for him to remember, that's why he doesn't remember them. He doesn't have a brain or a liver or a heart to store them and if he had these parts, they wouldn't handle all of those memories anyway.

He thinks that if he remembered them all he'd know that there are more things, endless things, that he is not allowed to have, not anymore, and maybe if he knew the things he can't have, the loss of them would hurt him so much that he'd die. He hopes he is wrong. He doesn't like losing things. Things like Cas.

He is sorry for knowing Cas's memories, but they just are and now he can't get rid of them. He prefers to have Cas, so if he could trade, he'd trade, but there is no one to trade with.

He wants Cas so very, very much.

But if Cas is mad, and he is, because the thunder of his bellow still rolls across the silence as the only sound, the never-fading echo. So if Cas is mad, then Dean doesn't want this, he seems to do bad things here. Selfish things. And he forgets a lot, about the things he doesn't want to remember and pretends it's okay. And it's not, even if he doesn't remember why. He's trying to remember and all that he remembers is the road. And Cas.

But he can never forget Cas.

He calls out to him again; he's louder now, he hopes. He's almost got this again – the shouting that does not require a mouth to be heard.

_I'm here_, Cas answers in blue and Dean remembers Cas was once more than that, he once had a body. It was a good body, strong and beautiful, immersed in candle light and boiling. It was so grand.

But now, he's sure Cas is angry, because Dean did what Cas swore he wouldn't.

Cas's voice must be a trumpet, it makes the walls come tumbling down. The memories come, those he doesn't want, of the things he loves and can't have. The road is again endless, but it's faded. There's the house at the end of it. There's Cas and it feels so good. There is time and the time is eternal. He remembers promises of _forever, forever_. They have forever.

Only they don't: he remembers Cas's green eyes and Cas's dead eyes. He remembers Balthazar and Raphael and the darkness scarier than this one. He wants to know if it festered, his soul, from Hell's lacerations, maybe it festered and rotted and that's why he now wishes he could forget again and hide forever.

_You said I could see everything_.

Cas is quiet again for a while, but then he says: _yes_.

Maybe it festered and rotted and made him a bad man, who knows he was once acclaimed righteous. Still even a decayed soul is not an excuse for cowardice, when there's a great battle ahead.

_I want to see what you see_.

He might have a rotten soul – which he prays he does not – but he's not a coward.

_You shouldn't trade your forevers for my fight._

Dean remembers forevers and eternities, he remembers things infinite. Those are the things he shouldn't remember, because those are also the things that are lost. He remembers the whole universe and being a god, so in love.

Right then and there he is glad he doesn't have eyes.

_Take me there, Cas._ His eyes would be weeping, but Dean's set in stone. _Let me see._

_Are you sure?_

He once was a king.

_Yes._

He opens his eyes.

* * *

><p>"It isn't my decision to make, Dean," Sam explained, sitting against him with blank expression on his face. "You have to make it."<p>

Dean had told Sam and Bobby everything about the dream right after breakfast. Both of them had taken it strangely calmly, they hadn't commented on the compatibility part. But also neither of them had advised him on what to do.

"Thanks, I figured that much," Dean sighed.

It was weird, now that he thought of it, how easily he had agreed to it in the dream. Whether because of Cas's presence, the general surprise, or the dreamy atmosphere, he practically said _yes_. Now that he was awake, he started wondering if he should have second thoughts about it. Cas's tone, almost begging, was still ringing in his ears: he needed him. It was much bigger than just helping Cas. It was about killing Raphael, it was their fight too. After all, Cas had given everything and more to protect their free will, then he started the war for them, too. Dean could give him at least that.

"But what about the two of you? Sam, your Wall?"

"Come on, Dean, I've got this," his tone was annoyed. "As long as there aren't any more fiery storms, I'll be fine. Besides, I've got Bobby."

"Alright. And the Mother?"

"Do you want us to wait for you?"

"No," Dean answered quickly, "keep digging. Just… be careful."

"Sure."

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

There was a question Dean had wanted to ask him as soon as they started the topic, but every time he had reminded himself that it might scratch Sam's Wall.

"Nothing," he muttered and the silence followed.

He had questions about what the possession feels like, how intruding it was, how unbearable.

"Dean, if you wanted to ask me about the possession," Sam of course had to figure it out, "ask away. It's on this side of the Great Wall, but…" he paused, shifting closer to his brother, "don't compare Cas to Lucifer. Yes, it was terrible and terrifying and I kept fighting for control all the damn time. But that was the Devil and this is your friend. You won't have to fight."

"Yeah, you're right," Dean said, sucking at his bottom lip, "I can trust Cas on this one at least, right?"

"Uh, I guess. Surely more than I could trust Lucifer."

Dean chuckled.

"Okay."

There was no time to waste. He could do it now as well as later. Although he decided to stuff his stomach with a burger first – who knew how long it would be until he could eat something again? And his appetite had come back miraculously, which probably had something to do with Cas not being dead. For a moment he considered changing his clothes into something… well, he had no idea to what, so ultimately he stayed in a shirt and donned his jacket. Then he went on to saying goodbyes, and, more importantly be carefuls, before he started to pray.

For a heartbeat he expected to see Cas as he'd always been: trenchcoat, tie and Jimmy Novak; then he remembered that in a minute Cas would be more of a plaid, jeans and Dean Winchester and it made his stomach churn quietly. He'd made the decision, he was not gonna back out.

He felt Cas's presence, but the angel did not manifest to their senses, and thank him for that, because they didn't need the windows or their eardrums to get shattered by his voice. Cas was kind of in his head, but not really. When he closed his eyes, he could hear his whisper.

"Yes," Dean said simply, knowing that was all Cas needed.

First there was the high-pitched screech, the same Dean still remembered from that gas station, his ears started to hurt and he braced himself for the shards of glass flying around, but there weren't any. Then came the light, bright, brighter, brighter. He wanted to cover his eyes, but then he realized they were already closed. Still the blinding brightness kept filling up his eye sockets, flooding his body, the unendurable tone began to run through his veins, his skin burned, his nerves-endings were on ice. He felt tiny and the wave of intent kept compressing into his body, tearing it at the seams and soothing; pain and morphine fought for control.

Suddenly everything ended, all at once. Instead of the light there was impenetrable darkness, instead of the noise – the ear-piercing silence; instead of pain – there was nothing.

_Cas?_


	2. Chapter 2

Angels don't breathe. Maybe they just don't breathe on the right schedule. Or just not the way Dean needs them to. And he needs to inhale. He needs a sharp breath of shock as the dark ceases. Every single one of his senses snap in at once and make him shiver at the sudden exposure. Only he doesn't shiver. The skin on his face and forearms crawls with the sticky, damp air, but it doesn't give him goosebumps. And he's fairly certain the air is cold, but it's not something he's able to fully determine. It could be scorching, for all he knows. With the air comes the smell and the noise and the light. The light is blinding; it feels like staring at the snow, even though the snow in this case is flaking paint on a wall in a dim room. He can't avert his eyes, he can't blink; he can't shut them to go back to the comfort of the deep, blue darkness he used to have. Still, his eyes, overexposed, can recognize every detail within his view, every scratch on the wall covered in mold. The mold smells and so does dust and the spider-webs, too, and he doesn't know how he knows, but he knows it's them. He smells as well, of cheap soap mostly, and the hard chair under his butt smells of wood and it squeaks, loudly and piercingly, and he can't un-hear it, just like he can't stop hearing the clock on his left wrist ticking like a shotgun, or the stubborn, sweet chirps of crickets outside the window. The noises whisper to him in unknown languages he can understand; the roof speaks of holes, the wind speaks of dead winter. The heartbeat speaks of the time running out with each bang of the sweep hand. Even the tastelessness on his tongue seems to have a taste.

In a way, this state of experiencing is old; he's been there. He was once a vampire, a long time ago: he saw brighter, heard louder, smelled blood from two blocks away. The similarity laid in the sharpness of the senses, the difference in the two hundred percent focus and stillness. There is no violence in it: the blood pumping in his own veins doesn't scream _dinner_, the hunger doesn't tunnel his vision towards the red liquid, attempting to shut down all processes that aren't aimed at obtaining a snack. There is no pain: the impulses bombarding his senses with almost atomic power, grotesquely exaggerated, should cause damage to his every nerve, yet he feels as if he could stare at the sun if Cas wished to and he wouldn't hurt at all. There is no anxiety, no pounding in his head, no confusion. On the contrary: his body and mind seem to be stuck in perfect contentment. Temporarily at least.

He is aware; perfectly aware of every string of light, of every molecule which his senses can perceive on a level incomparably higher than his own, dull, human senses. He's not a human, not anymore, he realizes. Even if his essence, tucked into a far corner, is still a soul, not a grace, his body is angelic. The blood that flows through his veins has celestial properties, his brain processes information at warp eight, his bones are more durable than diamonds, his muscles are hard as rocks.

The only flaw is that he cannot use them, not a single one, they're not his to control. He's less than a passive receiver; he's a puppet. But it's not a hand up his ass or the strings that control him. These are his own muscles that do. Every tension, he feels, every shift of a bone against the joint, the weight of his forearm as it rises off his lap and the lap starts lacking that weight. His fingers cause friction in the air as they curl in, relaxed. His chest lifts and falls steadily, pumping new scents through his nose. The angels do breathe after all.

Not long till he finds out that the eyes are the worst part. He can tell Cas made it easy for him, staring absolutely still at one point until he could adjust to the new perception. But then his eyeballs move, ever so slightly, and it's like the whole world shakes.

"You'll get used to it, Dean." He feels his own lips move, his throat vibrate and the words come out spoken with his own voice, but he's not the one who said them.

The world jumps again, and it reminds him of the videos taken by those cameras attached to the helmet and pointed at one's face. With every move of the head, it's everything else that shifts but the said head.

_I hope so_, he's trying to answer, but his lips won't move. _Shit._

"I can hear you just fine," his voice speaks again and it kind of begins to freak him out. "It's just like it was before."

_Yeah but before I wasn't…_ he thinks aloud._ Well, I just wasn't. And now…_

He ponders in what should be the quiet that there must be a difference between what's quiet and what's aloud, and if Cas doesn't answer, this must be it. He's starting to get a grip on it, but still, his voice speaking words that aren't his is disturbing. So is hearing Cas speaking with his voice. He's not even sure if it's Cas anymore, it doesn't feel like him and that feeling defies any factual knowledge he possesses. Cas is just a strange entity hidden inside his muscles that is neither Dean nor Cas and it doesn't have Cas's qualities – there is not a single thing in him that is blue. Everything is wrong, because Cas has green eyes and plaid shirt and freckles. And even if Dean can't see these things like he can't see Cas, Cas still has wrong voice with the wrong tone and timbre.

"I understand, Dean." The way Dean's name sounds in his own – now Cas's – lips is so perplexing Dean wishes the angel would stop saying it altogether. A painful thought forms in his head, that if Cas were to utter a _Hello, Dean_ now, he couldn't possibly sound more like a stranger. "I told you this way would only make it harder for you."

And I wish you had stopped me, he thinks and he prays it's the quiet way. He was scared and confused when he said _let me see_, the remnants of that feeling still linger in his memory. It felt like waking up dazed from a nightmare, only the other way around. First there was a paradise of bed, then sudden flood of memories, he couldn't stop. By the time he spiraled down, he'd been in the light for too long to remember what the darkness was, not knowing who he is. All there was, was the angel's shout that felt like the whole wrath of Heaven had fallen on him. He was swimming in black, tarry panic, with one thought of _I fucked up_ and all he wanted was to find a way to make it right. And maybe put an illusion of a safe distance between himself and Cas, at which he utterly failed, all because he feared Cas's anger would digest him. Now Cas doesn't seem angry at all, but Dean doesn't ask. A part of him wants to apologize for that invasion on Cas's memories, although now that he sobered from the darkness, he knows it was not intended at all. In fact, he'd rather not know that Cas once watched him rake leaves and didn't even come to say hi. The contradicting emotions whirling inside him at the moment weren't that helpful either. Dean would rather forget.

The other part of him wants to apologize too, but for something else: namely for forevers. Those that Dean's rushed decision deprived them both of. He remembers them all and of course now he knows they weren't forevers, but they surely felt like it. If he were to fit them all into a time measure known to man, they would spill out and submerge him. Even thinking about them hurt, for they were too many lifetimes spent in a dream.

Suck it, DiCaprio.

There was a thing about the movie, though, that he could now sympathize with: surreal as they were, all the infinities of the inside seemed way more real and probable than what he got in exchange.

"Who's DiCaprio?" Cas's question startles Dean, because apparently he's not that good with the silent and the loud yet. Still, the angel taking the opportunity to show off his complete ignorance of pop-culture, as always, spills something warm across Dean's heart. It reminds him how much more there is to Cas than the trench coat and the blue.

_He's an actor_, he answers, mindlessly willing the corners of his lips to smile – to no avail. _He played in this one movie about lucid dreams… It's good, I'll show it to you._

"You won't, Dean," Cas reminds him, but Dean doesn't need a reminder, this one thing he never forgets. He just wrote a different ending to the story, and he still, after all that's happened – especially after all that's happened – is not letting him go.

_I will, Cas, _he thinks, determined. _We'll watch it together, I'll make… I'll teach you how to make popcorn._

"Dean," it starts again, the pleading. But Dean is relentless.

_No, see, Cas, I thought it through. I said it once, do you think I didn't mean it?_

"No, you didn't," Cas answers decidedly. "I can't keep you like this forever. I wouldn't want to. You've got your life."

_But I want you to. I want you to stay, man_, he feels the quiet-loud filter wear off completely,_ I should have said it before all this, but after what we did? What we are? How do you expect me to let you go?_

The images keep flowing through his head, his own this time: their little house, their huge bed. The emotions are his own too, although he's sure Cas's are the same, it keeps replaying, their bodies, joined together, their mouths, hungry for each other, fingers searching, loving…

_Dean._

Dean's mind goes quiet. It's not his voice this time, it's Cas's, and it's in his head, more persistent than any spoken word could be. It isn't that scary this time, it's begging, maybe warning. Oh God, Dean thinks with the realization, Cas is hurting. Every word, every plea Dean drives through Cas like knives. Maybe it's not at all harder to be the one that gets left behind when the other leaves. If he remembered, he'd know what it's like to be leaving, he was once the one who had to go and leave behind people he loved and things he enjoyed. He too had someone who refused to let him go, who kept telling him there is a choice.

"You have no other choice, Dean," Cas adds out loud, as if he was reading his mind.

After that, they both keep to their silent modes. Dean thinks of Cas's palm sealing his mouth. _Don't you say that to me_, the angel begged and Dean just didn't get it. There's a whole world Cas needs to leave behind. Dean, too. Maybe he'll be stationed on Earth again, like he used to be, Dean wonders if that's good enough. He wonders if Cas would sometimes station over cheap motels and sometimes see him walking out of the Impala, with a bag of guns on his arm. Just another day in the office – another town, another hunt, until he's too old to hold a knife. Or maybe a blue-eyed girl – or a guy, he considers – picked up at a bar, hanging at his shoulder. They'd follow him to the room for a quick, comfort fuck and goodbye before the morning. All that has been enough for Dean for all his life. Would Cas still watch him then?

There's a part of Dean that wants to blame Cas, to blame him for giving up too easily. For saying 'no' when Dean keeps saying 'yes', when he offers him his whole body and his whole life. But that way, Dean would have to blame himself too, for the time wasted and he's not eager to start building his new ballast on what they could have had.

Instead, he chooses to blame Raphael. The bastard took it all away, murdered, slaughtered, devoured. While they were accusing each other for all the things that they have or have not done when Dean yelled at Cas for trying to fight not necessarily the good fight, but as fair as could be in the circumstances given, he was blinded. There were no sides there, no right or wrong, just the common enemy: pompous, power-hungry son of a bitch who tried to make the big bad out of Cas, even in Dean's eyes. From the moment that fucking hole closed on Stull Cemetery, it was always him: all the bad deals, all the alphas and damned Crowley – it was never Cas's fault.

Raphael needs to die. And he will.

Dean attempts to take a deep breath to ease his boiling blood. He ends up forcing Cas to do it for him and it kind of helps. So does the knowledge that the fucker will be dead at dawn. As well as the fact that the deep darkness means they still have some time.

_Why is it still dark?_ Dean notices, as his anger begins to wear off.

Their eyes flick towards the window. There is a street lamp shining weakly and Dean realizes that this is the sole source of the light in the room that appears to him so bright. Behind it there's a piece of the sky, ink black, but on that tiny slice visible through the shattered window, there are more stars than he could normally see from horizon to horizon, condensed on the limited space. The sight is mesmerizing, soothing. Suddenly, Dean finds himself in the need to squash down the jealousy for Cas's limitless perception of the worlds.

"It's barely past midnight," the angel answers dryly.

_Wow, after all this ti– _stops mid-sentence, because time is not exactly a concept he can rely on._ Wait. How long has it been for you?_

"It's been three days since I possessed you."

Three days… Sure, Dean was aware the time inside was wacky, but he expected a month at least. This is good, though, he thinks, every time he allowed himself to forget about things like Sam, the Mother and the whole rest of the world, the world didn't even have time to start missing him. But this isn't what he wanted to know.

_No, I mean since we…_ he trails off. Sex has never, ever been a topic that would make him feel awkward. On some days it was a thing as normal, even as necessary, as breathing. But lately, breathing has not exactly been a normal thing, so how can he categorize what they did? Was it still real if it only happened in his head? No bodies, no reality – no act. But Cas was there too and it felt more real than anything ever has. Maybe_ because_ there were no bodies, no animalistic drive; just the pure desire to feel Cas, to savor Cas, to be one with him in more than just a sexual, in more than just a _possessive_ sense. He did not just want Cas: he needed Cas to have him whole, his whole life, his whole world. It wasn't something a quick round of jacking off in a shower could dissolve.

Inside the black hole and the galaxy of his locked up mind, it felt like the longing has lasted since the dawn of time and forever. Now that Dean has sobered up, he thinks simply that maybe it felt real, because he told Cas he loved him and it was the strongest he's ever felt being this vulnerable.

"Oh, um, about half an hour," the angel answers and a shocked _oh_ escapes Dean's thoughts.

_No way_, he mumbles.

They've been living on two separate timelines: Dean had all the time in the world and vast gulfs between short moments; Cas has been forced to tread the fast lane towards his earthly death, only stalling the inevitable in the refuge of Dean, and when they synchronized, Dean wonders, did Cas slow down or did Dean run faster? The latter, more likely, because they can never have good things.

But they're both on time now, heading steadily for the end in the pace of the very same heartbeat.

They become tall suddenly but gradually; with a surge of tension in their legs and the movement of their back, they stand up from the chair, accompanied by its tired whine. They turn around and just when Dean thought he was used to the earthquakes in his eyes, he finds out he is not. But he will be.

They turn around and their eyes inspect every corner, every wall, like Cas is expecting something to jump out from behind the grayish layer of dead paint. There's a table by the window where they sat, the room is bigger than it appeared and outside, in the semblance of a hallway, there are stairs leading somewhere to the darkness of the first floor.

_Cas, what are you doing?_ Cas has had time to check the place out, but this – this stops looking like a checkout, more of a presentation. _Wait, I…_

Cas takes his time, giving another once over to the shards of glass glimmering on the floor – they must have once sat inside the hollowed windows framed by what used to be white curtains, before the storm came and smashed them all. Now the glass covers the floor, mingling with the wooden splinters on the thick blanket of dust, and there in the middle of it, the ground is charred in a circle.

_I know this place_, Dean realizes, confused as to why they're in Maine, in this particular house. The old building hasn't changed at all since the last time they were here over two years earlier. But then, abandoned houses rarely do, unless they collapse. _Why are we here?_

"For the ritual I need a place that Raphael has strongly marked with his presence," Cas explains.

It makes sense, Dean thinks, blowing out the windows on their heads, not to mention the power in the entire East Coast, that must have left a big-ass mark. It surely did leave some mark on him, because, boy, was he pissing his pants standing in front of the furious archangel who was raising storms from inside the ring of Holy Fire. There haven't been many instances in Dean's life when he was legitimately scared, but that was one of them.

Still, funnily enough, Raphael's visit wasn't the part of their trip to Waterville, Maine that glowed in Dean's memory the brightest. There was a lot of scary shit on Dean's way, especially since the kickstart of the Apocalypse, but there weren't many occasions for him and Cas to hang out and just be two good buddies. Cas has always been either on the wrong side of the fence, fighting, or gone. But then, that one night outside of the brothel, where Dean had nearly had to drag the terrified angel by force – not that he had that much strength to do so, but it surely took a lot of convincing – that was when Dean for the first time thought: "Hey, I really want this guy to stick around." And not because he was a powerful ally, because he was a friend. After that it was all downhill, though maybe a bit bumpy, but each day Dean found himself hoping Cas would pop in – to help with their unholy mission or to grab a beer – it didn't matter.

And now they're here again: same place, same fucking archangel to catch. Only this time the stakes are much higher. This time there won't be just fire and lightning and broken glass. This time there will be blood. And Dean just hopes it's not theirs.

_So what now, you wanna sit here quietly?_ Dean mocks the echo of past Cas jokingly and is answered by a chuckle.

"What else would you like to do?" the angel asks more seriously. "We still have about five hours until sunrise."

Dean is grateful that neither of them went with the _last night on earth_ line, although he knows it's persistently rumbling on the backs of both of their minds.

_We should, uh, I guess we should go see Sam and Bobby_, Dean remembers. _They should know it's today, in case…_

"You're not gonna die, Dean," the angel cuts in, firmly. "I won't let that happen."

_I know, Cas, I know_, Dean mutters. It's not like Cas plans to die and in their situation it's either neither or both. If they die, they die together. How romantic, Dean thinks sarcastically._ With both our lives at stake, we're making it easy for the bastard, aren't we._

"But I mean it, Dean," Cas says decidedly. "Keeping you alive is my priority."

The surprising statement throws Dean off balance. That's some diametrical change of directive about which he for sure has not been consulted.

_Killing Raphael is our priority_, Dean corrects him, accentuating every word, because apparently Cas needs a reminder. He's known all along this is bigger than him, still he signed up, aware that the chances are he's a dead man when this is over. But he's no stranger to sacrifice. And Raphael needs to die. _No distraction here, alright, Cas?_

"No distraction," Cas agrees, but then he stubbornly adds a promise of: "but you will make it out alive."

_Well shit, Cas._ Dean starts to lose his patience. This kind of thinking might prove dangerous on the battlefield and he knows Cas knows it, but his judgment might be temporarily clouded._ As long as the son of a bitch is dead, I'm happy. And yeah, sure I don't want us dead, but you don't pull the "you're my priority" crap on me. Not now_, he pleads.

"I'm not stupid, Dean," Cas assures him, their voice suddenly taking on a tired tone. "I know I can't let anything stop me from killing Raphael."

_Good. But I'm kinda getting mixed signals here_, Dean thinks at him, confused, demanding answers.

"I know," Cas mutters.

There's a strange heaviness to their breathing, as if their chest wore a burden that Dean doesn't feel. They cross the room to slump down on the chair again, their back slouches, head falls down to rest in their hands. Everything goes black when Cas closes their eyes.

_What's wrong, Cas?_

Cas takes a longer while to answer, and when he does, his speech is slow and drowned with remorse.

"You are the last person I wanted to drag into this," he says, eventually, but Dean can't say he's shocked. "It's too dangerous."

_Cas, I read the terms and conditions._

"That's not what I'm talking about. You are always so ready to die, Dean," Cas shakes their head. "But have you thought that maybe I am not ready to let you die?"

Dean sucks in breath, metaphorically.

"I put at risk everything I have, Dean," Cas continues, "and by that I don't mean my life, I mean yours. If you think that… Dean, the thought of getting you killed… It's more than I can handle. I'd call it all off if I could, just to keep you safe. Whether I'm dead or alive, you must live."

At dead or alive is where Dean loses it. Since they both lately seem to want things the other finds improbable, he'll fight him on this one, just as hard as Cas fought him. He knows there's his fault somewhere in it too, because they're just two self-sacrificing jackasses, but fuck if Cas isn't being plain fucking selfish here.

_You stupid son of a bitch_, he growls, voice echoing in their head._ You're gonna whine about my life? Well, screw you! Because you know what? When I die, you know exactly where I'll be. Right there, upstairs, waiting for you to stop by. Where will you be?_ he asks bitterly._ You can't exactly give me twenty of angel heaven. So you can cut your crap and for once think what here is really at stake._

He wonders if the anger boiling in his stomach burns Cas too, but it apparently does not, because Cas still doesn't get it and he still says:

"It doesn't matter."

Infuriated howl fills Dean's mind, blinding him, and hopefully Cas too, and he thinks that if he had any control of his body, he'd smash the walls with his fists and that fucking table and the damned, squeaking chair.

_God! _he shouts. _You dumb fucker! You're lucky I can't grab you by your fucking shirt and throw you against the wall. _He sees the image vividly storming through his thoughts, Cas with his old face staring at him from two inches away, shocked at Dean's reaction. _I'd kiss your fucking stupidity off your face. Would you fucking understand then? Would you? That I fucking love you?_ he confesses, emphasizing every word._ So just fucking get over it and don't let yourself get killed!_

"Dean."

He realizes they're heaving, knuckles white squeezing the edge of the table, old wood cracking under the pressure.

_I love you too_, Cas gasps vehemently straight into his brain, the force breaks the dam between him and Dean. _I always have_._ Always_.

When the scenes come flowing in, Dean knows it isn't his doing this time. They go from burning white to mild, stoic implosions; they're smiles and choices; mostly choices, and the crushing feeling of doubt, gradually fading, like the emotions, with each picture, as they go back in time, until they're licked by the flames, dumbfounded by the bright glow of the soul that winces from the touch. _Always_, resounds again and they're in the last one of the forevers without and inch of air between their bodies.

_Upstairs_, Dean demands and when Cas doesn't comply, he repeats harder. _Upstairs._

What happens next cannot be compared to the usual suckiness of teleportation when the carpet gets pulled out from under him without a warning. It's more of an elevation, as the muscles of their back tense where the wings begin. He feels every millisecond of the flight, perfectly controlled slide between the whirling molecules as they cross the walls and the ceiling, before landing with a rustle of feathers on the first floor bedroom where Dean napped during their first stay there.

_How do you–_ Cas begins, no longer bothering to open his mouth, but Dean cuts him off.

_Bed_, he commands.

He can sense confusion slowly spreading in Cas, but he floods it out with the warm candlelight flickering on their palms, Cas's fingers trailing patterns of the freckles on Dean's skin, moans filling in blanks for the angel. And as he begins to understand, a quiet gasp of his own breaks the dead silence of the house.

As soon as they hit the bed, with one thought Cas wills the blanket of dust away, rendering the old bedsheets pristine.

_How?_ He asks, this time eager to follow any given instructions.

_Cas, it's my body, right there,_ Dean purrs, _and I'm right here_.

He waits impatiently as Cas stumbles on the buttons to peel off layers of their clothes, exposing their chest to the cool air.

_I'm all yours, Cas,_ Dean tempts_, now show me yours, let me feel what you feel. Like I showed you mine._

The angel starts off damn shyly, without Dean to lead his movements, but the man is there all the time, giving him whispered encouragement of _good, that's good, Cas, keep going._ Gentle strokes soon turn into heavy-weight exploration: every inch of the body, every line of a muscle, hypersensitive tips of their fingers serving them for eyes that are now closed. It's not even half as bizarre as it could appear, not some fucked up version of masturbation. These are Cas's hands that caress Dean's body, these are Dean's hands that caress Cas. And they want each other hungrily, desperately.

"Can you feel it?" Cas mumbles aloud to make sure of what he must already know, and fuck does Dean feel…

_I feel everything, Cas._

He feels everything, and more. His skin perceiving tenfold, like embroidered with an ocean of new nerve endings like the night sky was embroidered with new stars, and each of them focused on one purpose only: pleasure. His pleasure. And Cas's pleasure. Shivers crawling down the spine, from there Dean feels the fingers on the back of his neck, the other hand teasing his nipple.

The only thing that's missing is the mouth, the hot, soothing mouth with teasing teeth and the nimble, wet tongue to lick him, suck hickeys into his skin, slide down the trail on his belly. All they've got is one set of hands to make it all good. It's all in the hands, fingers slick with his spit, then slick with his pre-come, when Dean's desperate pleas of _fuck my dick, fuck it, fuck it_ finally gets fulfilled.

_Dean, you'll tell me if I do something wrong?_ Cas checks, grabbing his cock with one hand, using the other to push the pants and boxers down.

_Sure thing, Cas_, Dean gasps, wishing for the slightest bit of control, to rush the angel, because the angel takes it so infuriatingly slow, _no worries, just, keep, fucking, touching me_.

With the eyes closed Dean can let himself forget again, and so he forgets the old fucking room that reeks of dust and the bed with creaky springs. He replaces the images with Cas's golden skin, the sounds with Cas's pants, the scents with the scent of Cas. He sees the fire-licked figure arching over him, muscles of his chest and abdomen tense and hot, sweaty skin inviting, begging for a touch and Dean's hand reaches up, sliding down that torso while his eyes search for the blue eyes. The fantasy feels real, with the weight of the other body pressing his, then Cas's mouth follows where his hand was to take his dick in its wet, warm embrace, then Dean fucks and fucks his throat.

_So good._

_It's so good, Cas._

_Now fuck me, Cas._

He feels a finger slip into him, his hands hold on to Cas, the Cas who does it so, so good, the Cas that is real and tangible. The Cas that makes sweet little noises, as another finger joins, stretching Dean up, preparing for what is never to come. Still Cas fucks him with his fingers, while Dean fucks his throat and it feels so good when Cas hits the right spot, time after time, drawing groans from his mouth, groans that echo in the burning air till they explode into a whimper as Dean comes.

The splatter of come on his stomach makes the whole world quiet but for Dean's heavy panting and Cas's panting, which are one again. They lie next to the empty air, Cas's hand – his hand lazily caressing his cock, muscles loosening but for the heart that doesn't want to slow its beating. Their eyes open and the old room again reeks of dust, only the bed doesn't creak, because they don't move. They are alone together again.

* * *

><p><em>It's almost time, isn't it?<em>

He feels their head nodding in confirmation before they rise up on their elbows. With a slide of palm across their chest, the whole stickiness is gone from their stomach, which, Dean thinks, is very handy.

_It's four forty eight_, Cas thinks in response, without even glancing at the watch sitting on their wrist. _The sun will rise at five fifty seven._

_Oh shit,_ Dean growls, the sudden realization that it's almost time, just a bit over an hour away, hits him like a punch in the stomach, fully stirring him up from the post-lovemaking drowsiness.

They've been lying there, just breathing, for what felt like minutes, but must have been hours, after all. Dean really hates the way the time flows here. They've been talking about old things, easy things. Dean told Cas stories from the hunts from before the angel came to his life. Cas spoke of ancient stories that the Bible dared not mention. Most of all they've talked about love, which couldn't get more chick-flick, but Dean didn't care, because there were certain things that Cas just had to know.

There was an unwritten contact saying: we're not talking about the messed up situation we're in. But then Dean broke it, because contracts never did him any good.

_I won't lose you, Cas_, he muttered, just to hear his name in a tone of "we've talked about this," because they had, many times, but back then Dean's mind hadn't been as clear as it is now. _I will let you go, but only if you promise to come back. You could pop in once in a while, right? You could jump in and we'd have some fun. Weekend visits, like a friend, huh? Cas?_

_Yes_, Cas answered after a beat, letting a tingly sensation of joyful relief resonate through Dean. _I'll be coming back for as long as you want me._

For the first time since that one night in January so, so long ago, Dean wasn't afraid of what was to come. After that they didn't have to try to fit all the words from all those years wasted into what little they had left of the night anymore, yet still they tried. They still wanted to say it all before they were out of time that was running unrelentingly towards the end.

And now they've run out of it.

_Let's get going_, Dean decides and feels Cas, just as reluctant to leave the bed as him, pull them up, eyes scanning the floor in search of clothes. They lie haphazardly just as Cas left them; he picks them up. _You've everything ready, right? For the ritual?_

_All the ingredients are here,_ Cas confirms as he shakes the tight jeans on, having at once switched to the entirely professional mode, while Dean is having a hard time letting go. _Do you still want to see Sam?_

_Yeah, okay, let's see Sam_, he answers devoid of enthusiasm. Hopefully seeing his brother will give him a healthy slap in the face and bring him back to the awful reality. He hasn't seen Sam for so long.

_Alright_, the angel answers and luckily Dean chooses to take it for "brace yourself," because as soon as the jacket lands on their shoulders, they take off.

The wee jump to the bedroom was barely a foretaste to what the actual cutting through the atmosphere is. It's all speed that must be faster than light and turns everything into a blur, even for the angel's eyes, yet Cas manages to control the flight, perfectly focused on the destination. Fifteen hundred miles from Maine to Sioux Falls takes him a single flap of wings, and halfway through, Dean remembers he's afraid of flying. But before he can contemplate over whether angels crash like the planes do, it's all over.

They hit the ground right in front of Bobby's house and Dean needs a long moment to gather himself up. Were it not for the fact that Cas holds his body upright, he'd fall, shaking from the overload of sensations.

_I can't get inside,_ Cas announces,_ the house is angel-proofed._

_Good_, Dean utters, finally, when he's managed to put his thoughts back together. _Start throwing pebbles at the window._

He feels his own head tilt to the side with confusion and can barely hold back a laugh.

_Any better ideas?_ he asks.

_We could just call him,_ Cas answers simply, pulling Dean's cellphone out of the jacket pocket. _With a phone._

_Oh, that'll work too_, Dean gasps, eyes following his fingers, as they pick the right number.

There's a beeping signal at the end of the line and it goes on for a long moment before it's replaced by a sleepy yet alert voice, that sounds completely foreign through the phonelines.

"Hello?"

"Sam, it's me, Castiel."

A faint light appears in one of the windows upstairs.

"What's wrong?" the man asks automatically.

"I'm outside the house," Cas says, and before he can add anything else, Sam throws him a quick: "I'm right there," and ends the call.

It takes less than a minute until the front door opens and Sam appears in it, fully dressed. Must have slept that way, Dean thinks; he knows he does. Although he's not sure if it's Sam's custom too. It feels good to see his face, finally have some sharp details to fill in the obscure, blurry contours that were left inside his mind, washed out by the passing of time. It might have been only three days for Sam, but it was still millennia for Dean, millennia without seeing that face. Entire lifetimes without even remembering his existence. But now there's a whole human being standing before him, flesh and bone, all concern and perfect hair, and Dean should feel relieved, knowing that kid he needs to take care of is real. And all grown up too.

"What's going on?" The hunter closes the door behind him and steps up closer, examining them carefully. "Are you both still in there?"

His voice is a worried melody, so soft for someone so big, who doesn't own a soul. But he does own a soul, Dean recalls feebly, unsure why soullessness was the first thing that came to his mind. The kid's eyes are full of soul, as they stare right into theirs, as if trying to find the essence of Dean hiding in the depths of their pupils.

Their own eyes take in the whole of Sam, his gigantic form, taller than theirs, as if Cas thought Dean needs to remember. He probably does, because the boy feels too much like a stranger for someone who used to bind Dean together. Dean thinks at some point the memories of the made up time will start to fade, like good dreams do in the morning, leaving you exposed to the cruelty of the waking world. And when they fade, they'll make room for the oldest memories to come back and drag him down like they never left. Then he'd remember everything that he now only knows in theory: he's always gotta look out for Sammy. Also that he loves Sam like a treasure, and knows better than his own palm. But mostly that he's gotta look out for Sammy. He'll remember it clearly like a child remembers a lullaby their mother sang, he'll know perfectly all of the words.

But for now he's glad it's Cas who does the talking.

"Yes, we are," Cas answers, and he adds from himself: "Dean says hi."

Dean doesn't remember saying hi, but he'll roll with it, since there isn't much he can do anyway. Sam shifts awkwardly.

"Um, tell him I said hi back," he says. "How is he?"

From what little Dean does remember, Sam's the one in their family who's got the questionable honor of being a walking encyclopedia of possession, therefore he should know exactly how the thing works. It's rather unlikely that Satan was a nice enough fella to shut him off. In fact, if he had, the world would have ended undoubtedly. No matter how strong the will to fight, there is no way out from down below. But then Dean assumes Cas must have explained to him what he'd done. Was it because Sam worried Dean wouldn't handle it the hard way?

Sam confirms his suspicion as soon as Cas finishes clarifying the situation.

"Oh, how's he– how are you taking it, Dean?"

He wishes he could roll his eyes, or raise his eyebrows at least, but all he can do is murmur a grumpy _I'm not complaining_ for Cas to repeat.

Before Sam can add anything, the front door opens again and out comes Bobby. He turns out to be an older man with a cranky expression and a hat on his head. _Bobby's like a father to me_, Dean thinks to himself, because that's the whole theory he remembers about the man, and he needs to hold on to it. He needs to fetch those floating pieces of information as dry as the biographic entries get, and cling to them like to a lifebuoy in this sea of new faces that should be familiar but got buried under tones of Cas.

"Did you find the archangel, boys?" the man starts without a hello.

"Not yet," Cas answers, then proceeds to fill them in on the news of the ritual.

"You're taking me with you," Sam decides on spot.

_No, we're not_, Dean objects automatically, maybe a bit too rapidly, but it doesn't matter, because the angel doesn't send the message forward. _What the hell, Cas? Tell him he's not going!_

_Why not?_ Cas asks him, ignoring the two man observing their silent conversation.

_Because I said so_, Dean says right away, hoping he sounds more like an older brother than a bratty child.

_But why?_ the angel demands the answer and Dean goes quiet. Because he doesn't want him there, is the first, obvious answer, which doesn't feel right and causes a weird twist somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. It's not that there is anything wrong with the boy. It's a perfectly okay boy and Dean'll probably like him as soon as he gets to know him; ideally – remember him. But he doesn't for now and it's not the best time for making new friends. Still, Dean's aware that the first and obvious answer should be different; the line goes: watch out for Sammy – Sammy might get hurt if he goes with them. This sounds like a perfectly valid excuse, and one that sounds like something Dean would say, so that's what he tells Cas.

_He can't get hurt during the ritual_. Cas wipes Dean's smugness off. _Besides he should know where we're going._

_Yeah, but_, his mind starts frantically looking for another excuse before he realizes that the attack is the best defense. _Why are you so eager to take him? You've an ulterior motive, huh?_

To Dean's surprise Cas replies him with a huff of chuckle that spills out through their throat before the angel can catch it. To his relief it's not a nervous "I plan to sacrifice the boy in the ritual" kind of chuckle. More of a "you're being fucking silly" in fact, which is comforting.

Still Cas defies Dean, their head nods in confirmation to Sam's request.

"You can go, Sam," he says despite Dean writhing inside in protest. "Are you going too, Bobby?"

For a beat the man's eyes watch their face vigilantly, but then he shakes his head.

"Nah, doesn't sound like you'll need me there," he decides. "But if you do, you know where to find me."

The angel nods their head again, but before he reaches their index and middle fingers to Sam's forehead, Bobby speaks up again.

"Just boys, don't get yourself killed," he says seriously, and then on a supposedly lighter, but in fact only depressing note, he adds: "The whole world counts on you, you know."

_No pressure, huh?_ Dean thinks grimly at Cas, who's at the verge of saying something dumb like "I don't think the world is aware of what is about to happen," but then he changes his mind and goes for simple:

"Getting killed is not a part of the plan."

As soon as their fingers touch Sam's forehead, they're rushing across America again just to land in Waterville the next moment.

"So what is this ritual?" Sam asks, freezing his ass off on the squeaky chair, while Cas unpacks his – as it turns out, Dean's – duffel bag. They're inside the old house, but it doesn't change a thing, since Raphael smashed all of the windows. Dean is glad the temperature doesn't affect his angel'd body.

"It's quite simple, actually. Only finding the ingredients was difficult," Cas explains, holding up a light violet flower with paper thin petals. "Like this plant, extinct since the Jurassic era."

_Whoah, dude!_ Dean thinks at him with excitement which then quickly turns into resentment, as he realizes:_ you took us back in time to visit fucking dinosaurs and you didn't tell me?_

To that Cas giggles, actually fucking giggles, which attracts Sam's curiosity.

"What?"

"No, Dean," Cas speaks aloud to answer both questions at the same time, "I did not go visit fucking dinosaurs without you. My friend Rachel did."

Now Sam laughs too, because Dean's apparently really hilarious. He'd rather have Cas keep their conversations between the two of them. That's what this little Vulcan mind meld of theirs is for, after all.

_Oh, good_, he comments, exasperated._ 'Cause I'd be pissed if I missed Jurassic Park live show, you know._

"I wouldn't let you miss it, Dean," Cas assures him, out loud again, which begins to annoy Dean. He's not used to sharing Cas. There is Dean and Cas, there's always been Dean and Cas, and even if before that there was Sam and Dean, the boy is still a stranger, an intruder half-listening in on their conversations. He doesn't really want to feel this way. He knows, he really does, that once he loved the boy with all that he was. He also knows it'll come back, it must come back eventually. But it's not now, not today.

"We've nineteen minutes until the sunrise," Sam mutters, peeking at his watch.

Their hands keep working on preparing the ritual, cutting up some ancient grasses, pouring in blood-like liquids, scribbling weird symbols that for sure aren't Enochian.

_Can you shut up for a moment?_ Dean asks, while their eyes slide across the table, checking if everything's on it's place.

_I'm not saying anything_, puzzled Cas replies immediately, willing the chalk dust off their fingers.

_I mean, can you not say anything loud?_

Cas doesn't answer, but Dean decides to try anyway,

_You did have an ulterior motive, didn't you? Dragging Sam here?_

Cas sighs heavily.

_Yes, I did_, he admits and his answer is exactly what Dean expected._ I heard you – sort of – what you were thinking, what you felt towards your brother and Bobby. You believe they're strangers to you._

_Well, yeah. _A surge of shame whirls in Dean's stomach._ Do you have any idea how long I haven't seen them? It's still not a reason to throw a high school reunion; not now._

_Dean, you haven't seen them for four days._

It's getting boring, the contrasting of his with theirs. They've already established they're incomparable, Dean also established that his was the true one, because it was his truth and that was the only truth that mattered to him. So when he says it's not been four days, then it's not been four days, for fuck's sake. But he doesn't feel like arguing, not now when it's this late.

_It surely didn't feel like it_, he just mutters.

_I know._ The tone of Cas's thoughts is soft and warm. Understanding. Cas does understand him. Even if his angelic memory probably reaches the creation of the universe itself and has never lacked any details, let alone things of such importance. But Cas also knows that Dean's only human and his memory should have never been burdened with a load it couldn't handle._ But you can't just push them away like that. They're your family._

_I know, Cas! It's not like… It's not like I'm not trying, okay? I remember,_ Dean tries to explain._ I remember the fire, I remember dad telling me to take care of Sam, I remember demon blood and Lucifer and driving around with the American Psycho. It just feels like I'm reading some, some entry in frigging Wikipedia, about someone else's life, like it didn't happen to me. But Cas, I'll get there._

_Yes, you will_, Cas confirms, and Dean thinks that it's good to have a solid confirmation that he hasn't lost those things forever. At the same time it means losing something else, something that makes him what he is now, everything that seems the most vital to him as he is and it's not comforting at all._ But perhaps I shouldn't have shut you off in the first place, I had no idea…_

If Cas for a second thought that this would make it better, he is damn wrong. But again, what matters for Cas and what matters for Sam and Bobby and apparently the whole fucking world is that Dean remains – or comes back to – being the same miserable, selfishly selfless himself he's been his whole life. What matters for Dean is that he's lived so long and he's remade himself into a person that allows himself to love his best friend Cas, but also into a person that has no emotional remembrance of the bad things that had shaped him into what he used to be. They were evil things, horrible things. They were monsters with monstrous faces and a monster with a face of his father, and one with a face of fire. They were things that have given him purpose his whole life, but also dug into him, kept taking some pieces of him and replacing them until he became ninety percent of crap. When these things come back to rob him of his water wings of lightness and stuff drilled obedience and guilt like rocks into his pockets, he'll drown.

It's only thanks to Cas that he's lightweight. And Cas doesn't get to decide whether the lightness is right.

_What the hell are you talking about?_ he interrupts him, betrayed._ What you've given me, Cas, what you've given us… Don't you dare take that all away from us and call it wrong. There's only one thing that's wrong here and it's the fact that you're fucking leaving me among people who won't understand._

_Dean,_ Cas says like his name still carries all the things Cas can't express.

_It's just too many things_, Dean's glad he's got no control over his tear ducts, he leaves the whole tearing part up to the angel. _I'm not only losing you, I'm losing everything._ And that when he realizes: _maybe you're right Cas. Maybe you shouldn't have shut me off. Maybe I shouldn't have fallen in love with you._

Cas sucks in a sharp breath and for a moment closes his eyes, before he answers:

_Maybe neither should I._

It stings. It stings more than it should. Probably because they know it's true. Probably because there isn't anything they can do about it anyway. They were in a check, that is about to turn into a mate.

They don't say another word. As a confirmation that the conversation's over, Cas turns to Sam, who's sat behind them all the time, most likely aware that they've had an important talk that should not be disturbed. Poor guy wrapped his winter jacket tightly around his body and he is still slightly shaking.

"Everything is ready," Cas announces to the younger man.

"Good." Sam glances at his watch again and gets up from the chair. "We've only got three minutes left."

"It'll all go quite quickly once I begin," the angel explains, while Sam examines the small altar prepared on the table. "I and Dean will depart immediately after learning Raphael's location, not to lose the element of surprise."

"Um, so he'll know you've located him?"

"There is a possibility that he'll be able to sense it and try to flee, but I'm quite sure he's still too weak to escape before we get there."

"Alright, I'm ready."

_What? What the hell? Cas, tell him he's…_ Dean protests again, afraid Cas won't listen like he didn't earlier, but luckily this time the angel is on his side. Apparently Battle Royale is not exactly a good theme for a high school reunion.

"You're not going, Sam," he says firmly.

"Why not?"

"Because it's dangerous, obviously. There's nothing you can do to help me there. Taking you there was never an option."

"Oh, I guess you're right." To Dean's relief Sam agrees. "I just hope it's not on the Moon."

"If the fight was to take place on the Moon it at least wouldn't threaten with many casualties." The sourness in his voice indicates he's still reminiscing all the damage and deaths his previous duel with the crazy archangel caused. Dean kind of forgot about that too. "But this time it shouldn't last long, and Sam," his voice is flat, "if we're not back soon, if we lose… There'll be no use of you even trying to get there and look for us."

They take a long look into Sam's eyes to make sure the boy understands. As Sam nods, his face takes on a pained and lost expression, making him appear much younger than he really is. Right there the gigantic man transformed into a boy, a kid that needed his older brother to come back alive. Dean wishes Cas would turn away.

And then Cas does turn away, to stare through the window at the lightening eastern horizon.

"Sunrise."

* * *

><p>If a few days from now Sam finds himself in a situation where he's forced to dismiss Castiel's last words to him and go looking for his brother's body, just to have something to burn or bury, luckily he won't have to leave the atmosphere. In fact he won't even have to leave the continent, although the passport will be necessary. But that'll be only if they lose and most of the time Dean is quite convinced they won't lose. For the rest of the time he thinks: <em>I'll die in fucking Canada<em>. But if so far he hasn't used up his entire limit of worrying about his own life, it is high time to place the bets.

It's not the first time that day Dean's glad he's not affected by the temperature, otherwise he'd probably die from freezing his balls off before they got to killing Raphael. The archangel himself is nowhere to be seen when they land on a thick layer of snow. It's still before dawn there, the world is frozen and dark and quiet. They're all alone.

_Are you sure it's here?_ Now that Dean's staring at snow it doesn't seem so blinding, the eyes don't ache from the brightness like the frosty down doesn't reflect light. Open, frozen ground surrounded by mountain tops is not Dean's idea of a hide, but to a weakened, wounded archangel it probably doesn't make a difference, as long as he's away from the only person who can defeat him. Which he is no more.

_Don't you feel it, Dean?_ Cas's confused tone resounds with anxious anticipation. It's coming.

_Feel what?_ He doesn't feel anything peculiar, but then everything in the way he perceives is still peculiar to him so whatever he should be sensing, he may be as well confusing it with the whole rest of sharpness.

_Spidey senses._

Cas gives him two heartbeats more to find it inside him, but whether it's supposed to be tingling or itching or scratching, it's not there and it doesn't matter. What matters is that Cas knows and he knows the way. They move. They step swiftly and so lightly their feet float on the snow.

Raphael knows they're here as well. They don't get far, the archangel meets them halfway. If Dean's angelic vision seemed fucked up before, seeing a real life angel takes the cake. After becoming a pile of salt, Raphael took on another vessel, female vessel, stepping firmly, barring their way. But it's not the vessel that takes Dean's figurative breath away, it's the way the angel is pouring out of it, the radioactive pure white filling the veins, shining through the skin like it's translucent, light leaking out her eyes, like the limited human body cannot contain it whole, though it's just an illusion. On the back, on both sides of the spine the skin cracks, the celestial intent spills out through the cracks to form two grotesquely gigantic shapes in the air, so bright, Dean understands why he was only ever allowed to see the shadows of Cas's wings.

Only there is something terribly wrong with those wings, they don't spread as high and as wide as they should. One of them is twisted in several different directions, the other one is thinned like its feathers have been ripped out together with the muscles. Both of them seem sick and hollowed. And it's not just the wings, now Dean notices the moving bubbles of the liquid light in the veins washed out and thin like water. None of these things seem to take away the angel's impressiveness, like half-deadly wound would do to a human, but they all sure seem like a hella good sign for them.

Not until now did Dean think if Cas's wings are as dismantled and broken. Or as brilliant.

"Congratulations, Castiel," the archangel speaks and his voice seems to echo through the mountainsides. "You've found me."

"Raphael," Cas gives him a courtesy of a greeting. "You hid well, I have to admit."

"I see you're playing with Michael's toy. He won't be too happy about it when he finds out. You know how he is."

"He won't have a chance to find out."

"You are so convinced you can kill me."

"I think I already proved myself to you once."

"And where is the power of the Heavenly Weapons now? You've used all of it up, brother."

"I don't need it anymore to defeat you," Cas replies with utter self-confidence and force so great that Raphael seems to have become smaller and Dean wonders if their eyes glow fiercely or if Cas's wings bristle like a furious cat's fur.

The archangel's chest rises slowly then falls and he takes a step towards them, before he switches the subject.

"You see, Castiel, you once said that the Apocalypse does not have to be fought. I thought about it when I stayed here alone for those few days. My conclusion was that it does. But perhaps we could postpone it," he offers. "Since it's all about those two rabid dogs of yours, we could wait a few generations. Then start again. It wouldn't be ideal, but that's a compromise we could work out."

_So what, they'll go for our grandchildren?_ _No thanks. _Dean holds back a bitter chuckle. He's been quiet this whole time not to distract Cas, now he had to speak up before Cas starts to believe this bullshit._ Cas, he's bluffing._

_I know, Dean_, the angel assures him, then aloud he repeats Dean's words: "You're bluffing."

"No," the archangel answers bluntly.

"Why would you change your mind now?"

If Cas hasn't noticed it before, the look the archangel sends him, having let the mask fall down, the fatigue poured all over his face says it all: he's tired and he's hurt beyond what several days of rest could fix. Cas may not be stronger than him, but their chances are way too even for the archangel's liking. He used to be Heaven's most terrifying weapon, now he is an equal match for a rebel.

"So you _are_ just a power-hungry, cowardly bully after all," Cas sums up, spitting each word out like venom.

Dean expects the attack to come right then – never piss off bully archangels – but Raphael keeps standing still with a patient smirk.

"Do we have a deal?" he asks, ignoring the insult.

"No."

"No? What if I throw something more in?" he negotiates further. His fear of imminent death makes Dean quite optimistic about their chances of surviving this. "How about a vessel for you? You could stay here with your pets, that's what you want, isn't it?"

Everything stops. The idea is like a punch through the air-pipes, blowing all of Dean's emotions and all of his thoughts into the oblivion. All, except for this one: Cas will stay. _Cas can stay_, rings persistently in his mind, within seconds becomes an obsession. Cas must stay.

"I could put Jimmy back together, you like him, right?" Raphael keeps taunting. "Or maybe a pretty girl? So you could get homey with your favorite here. Wouldn't you like that?"

If Cas can stay then screw the Apocalypse, with Cas they can end it again. But then he remembers the Apocalypse and his marbles start clicking back into places. He's fucking lost it and he must have begged Cas to stay, because Cas hides heartbreak behind the anger when he thinks his name.

"I'm not making any deals with you, Raphael," he says aloud. "The Apocalypse is not happening; not now, not ever."

His words fall with a force that could rearrange the mountains around them, giving Dean chills. Were they pointed at him, he'd be pissing his pants, but the archangel withholds their stare and shakes his head with resignation.

"Alright, Castiel. So you really want to fight?" His hand rises. "Let's fight."

Before they can even move, they're flying three hundred feet back hit by an invisible wave of power, a blow that would most likely kill a man. As they crash, Dean can feel their bones rattle, but being made of diamonds, they don't break. Their muscles ache with their every fiber, but they don't turn into a pulp. He wonders how Cas'll fight through that pain, but he gathers them up quickly with a swoop of his wings, before the opponent can come near them.

_Tell me you can do that too._

_This is good_. Stepping up towards Raphael, Cas wills his angel blade into existence in his palm just in time to block the attack. _He won't do it again soon. He's too weak._

The speed of the fight would turn them both and the entire world into a blur were Dean's eyes still completely human. Thanks to Cas he can see everything like it's in slow motion. Hit after a hit, hands and legs in motion, wings taking them high above the white ground, just so one of them, in turns, can gravitate towards it like a comet and smash it. The thundering of their falls, brings avalanches down in the distance.

With every punch and every plunge their power drains like fucking HP during the boss fight and they can only hope boss's batteries are draining too with each liquid feather torn out of his wings. There is blood spilling out of their vessels and shiny pecks of grace sparking in the air and dying out and after some time all Dean can think of is agony.

Dean and Cas are the one who breaks the rocks again, this time their face hits a steep side of a mountain, Dean is sure they don't have a face anymore. His own sobs of pain he cannot hold back drown in Cas's tortured whimpers as he attempts to get back on their feet. They've lost, Dean knows it. Cas knows it, too. He has to. But Cas doesn't give up.

"So you really thought you can defeat me, you vermin." The archangel is right behind them, limping, broken, just as good as dead as they are. But he's still the one standing up with the blade hovering over them. "I shall destroy you, like I should have long ago."

The archangel's hand rises to inflict the final blow, immense pain shoots through the whole length of their spine as they turn around, and spills into a pool in the stomach. The blade plunges into the flesh, piercing muscles, piercing heart, until its top peeks out on the other side. The radiance of the grace flashes like a sun right before their eyes, only it's Raphael's grace that is burning and Raphael's heart that is bleeding. It's his wide wings that set on fire as his body drops to the ground and they leave nothing but the charred ashes on the molten snow.

They won.

Even if it feels like they lost with their nerves and cells begging for death, they are alive and Raphael is dead. They did it, they defeated him.

_We won!_ Dean bellows victoriously, forcing the nagging disbelieve to shush down. They stare at the archangel's dead vessel, at the wings - the ultimate proof of their triumph._ Cas, we won!_

_We won_, Cas confirms, exhausted, letting their body slump back on the snow. A feeblest wave of warmth rushes through their body, starting to heal them right away.

The heatwave travels solely to their stomach, ignoring aching skull and bones and lungs. Drop by drop it collects in their pit, forming a puddle, turning into a sea on the left from their navel. Sudden dread fills Dean: it feels as if the whole of Cas tried to pump into that one spot, attempting to fix. Although Cas closed their eyes, forbidding them to wander down there, Dean recognizes the high-pitched cry of leaking grace.

_Shit, _he thinks. All his happiness flees at once. S_hit, shit, shit._

Maybe death will come soothe their bones, after all.

* * *

><p><em>We'll heal, right, Cas? Right?<em>

The angel doesn't answer, busy gathering every last scoop of his power left. Among many wounds there are a few that reach beyond the flesh and right into the essence of the angel and pour out in the form of blue-ish rays and a high tone, but they are just scratches and none of them is this severe. The blade dug deep down to the very spine, just a push from piercing all the way through, tearing apart vital organs, letting a flood of blood out. Technically, without aid, they should be dead within minutes, angel or not.

_We'll be fine, Cas._ This time it's not a question, it's a lie. The "it's not even that bad" sort of lie. They won't be fine.

Maybe if there were hands that would pressure the wound and take them to the hospital, some angel ICU, they would live. Maybe if they weren't in the fucking Nowhere, Canada, they would live. But they're lying all alone in cold mountains, having only Cas's grace to fight the death off. Dean can feel it crippling nearer with every heartbeat.

_S'okay, Cas, _he promises him._ It's okay, we won._

The only fix that comes pressing on the wound is a band aid out of Cas's grace and it cannot stop the bleeding, it flows out with the red liquid instead, only speeding up the sand in the hourglass counting down their time.

_It's alright, Cas, you can stop_, Dean whispers, trying to push Cas's warm grace away, not to let more spill out, not yet. _Stop, Cas, please._

But Cas doesn't stop; he can't, he's made a promise. Had he not, Dean knows, he'd still be trying to save him. In the end, Dean can do nothing but let him.

The last time Dean died, he didn't feel a thing. He didn't even hear the shots, he just woke up on his Axis Mundi. Before that, when he died for the first time, he had a whole year of getting used to the thought and he never succeeded. Now he doesn't have the comfort of thinking about himself. There is Cas and there are minutes that separate him from oblivion, and Dean from Heaven without Cas.

_It won't be that bad you know,_ he coos. Though Cas-less, at least he already knows his Heaven. Dean'll go with the belief in a better place for angels, because he knows what non-existence feels like and he can't think of Cas being just that without a pathway to eternities._ Maybe where you're going you'll have forevers too? Huh? Maybe you'll have me and the open sky and the road. I know I'll have the road, in my Heaven, you know? I'll have our endless, endless road and Baby and I'll have you. I'll have you kissing me by the Impala, that first time, and the thousandth time too, _he keeps rambling through the ache as if it could push the most painful thought away. The awareness that he'll never see Cas again is eating up his insides more than any wound or gangrene ever could. He's lost him before, but it has never felt this final. There is no coming back this time, no miraculous resurrection, they both can feel it in their shared set of bones. _I wish I had more of our house,_ _but I'll have the love in our bed, I'll have you. Cas, maybe you'll have me._

This time it's forever.

"Shut up," Cas murmurs, his face pressed to Dean's in faint candlelight. He's holding Dean in tight embrace, his right hand resting between their stomachs, healing.

"It's okay, Cas," Dean goes on, savoring the heat of Cas's body pressed against his for the last time. "I love you, Cas. Castiel. God, I love you so much." There are tears streaming down his face and he knows Cas is crying too. "You know, I hated you, when you first came, in that barn. You saved me and I hated you. You've loved me all along, right, Cas?"

"Yes, I have Dean. I've always loved you," Cas sobs into his jaw, then he searches for his lips to feel their sweet taste. "I will have this, wherever I'll go. I'll have your forevers. I will," he swears. "I'll have your scent and your eyes and your laughter. I'll have that time you told me not to change and when I made you laugh so hard you bent in half. And every word of your prayers and when you told me I do have a choice. You saved me too, Dean," his voice cracks, he inhales slowly and lets the broken air out. He collects the remnants of his composure back before he adds: "But you're not gonna die."

Dean feels the heat in his stomach become hot then scorching like his blood is boiling and he seeks Cas's lips to drown his scream in them, the angel's devastated face is wet from tears.

"It's okay, Cas, it really is," he whispers again into those lips. He cradles Cas's face in both of his palms, tilts head back to stare into blue, to memorize Cas's face whole as if he didn't have every detail of it carved into his heart. "Losing you hurts more than dying anyway."

"I'm so sorry, Dean." His lips quiver. "I'm so sorry I have to do this."

His guts catch in living fire and Cas keeps getting colder. He kisses Dean again and again, breathing I love yous. When he's only as warm as the room, Dean feels him slipping through his fingers and he's trying to hold onto him closer, but he's thinner and thinner.

"I'm sorry," he presses his lips to Dean's one last time, then his hand reaches to cover his eyes.

"No, Cas!" Dean chokes out as his fingers lock on air. He opens his eyes to see Cas disappear outside the ring of candlelight, Dean's arm stretches to catch him, grab him by his tie, but he's already too late. "No! Cas! Cas!" Dean keeps screaming his name louder and louder and reaches outside the bed but then Cas just isn't there anymore and Dean gets off the bed to run after him, but he never made up the rest of the house, the rest of the room. Outside of the bed there is nothing and Dean starts falling down and down into dark with Cas's name on his lips.

"No!" he shouts as he hits the ground and the light startles him. He's not in their house nor on the mountain. Must be the Axis Mundi, leading through Bobby's house. So it's over, he bites back a sob. He's hoping that Cas, wherever he is, has found a photocopy of him, like he longs to find his photocopy of Cas.

He tries to jump off the sofa where he woke up under a ton of blankets, but when he moves, surges of pain attack from every inch of his body, his bones protest and so do his muscles, his face feels like a bloody pulp. He doesn't remember pain in Heaven, pain always equaled Hell. But this wasn't Hell either. He looks down at his naked torso. It's all black and blue and red all over, but there is no hole in his abdomen.

The realization comes with the rushed, heavy steps from the kitchen and then Sam and Bobby barge in to the room.

"You're safe, Castiel." Sam gets to his bed first. The sound of the name stabs Dean in the stomach just like Raphael's blade did.

"I- It's me, Dean," he mutters, his throat is parched. Where is Cas?

"Oh God, Dean," in Sam's voice glee beats the surprise. "So you did it, you killed Raphael?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah." He's having hard time concentrating on Sam's annoying question, when the only thing pounding in his skull is _Cas_. "We won, he's dead. Where... Why am I here?"

"You popped up in the yard about an hour ago, been sleeping 'til now," Bobby explains, handing him a glass of water, for which Dean's incredibly grateful, even if swallowing hurts like hell.

"So Cas has left already?" Sam makes sure, without considering the question and Dean thinks that yeah, yes, Cas left.

"Yes," he answers quickly, "he left." He must have left, Dean saw him leaving, didn't he? He left the bed and left his healed body to cure himself back in Heaven. Must be easier to heal at home. Maybe he's got an angel doctor performing a gracefusion on him and then a sexy angel nurse will cater to him. How else would Dean be alive? The vessel dies when the angel dies.

And Dean is alive.

* * *

><p>Duffel bag full of weapons lands in the corner with a heavy thud as the squeaky door shut behind Dean. He could really use a beer, he thinks, although he's already drowned a bottle of whiskey with Bobby. He glances at his palm still quite automatically, but without much hope. It has never worked here yet, and he wouldn't bet it ever will.<p>

"Great hunt, really, amazing," he scoffs, like he's the only one who's angry about Rufus's death. At least angry enough. Even though he barely knew the man. Sam and Bobby seem just tired and resigned.

"Dean," comes Sam's warning, his head points in the direction of the living room, where the old man disappeared just a few seconds earlier.

"What?" His arms spread wide as he steps closer to his brother. "See, losing friends and family is not my idea of the so-called family business. And as I recall, we tend to do that a lot. Now Rufus? Gwen?" He pulls up his fingers counting them up, but then his voice breaks a little when he adds: "Cas?"

Sam's pissed expression promptly switches into one of compassion, but Dean can see he's still annoyed at his behavior.

"You said Cas isn't dead."

A tight knot ties in his stomach, forcing him to turn away from the other man not to show the pain twisting his face and clenching his jaw.

"Well," he begins slowly, raising his shoulders, "do you see him here?"

With that he leaves and hastily moves upstairs. He's fucking thankful he called dibs on the room converted into a bedroom, he doesn't have to bump into the other two locators more often then he'd like to. Sam didn't necessarily mind at first, by now he and the old man probably started arranging an intervention for him.

_Watch out for Sammy. Bobby's like a father to me_, he repeats to himself. The memories don't come back as quickly as he expected, so these two things and many, many others he has to remind himself of manually. He thought, by now, at least some of the time spent inside his head would wear off, making space for the old baggage, but it's not happening. He's probably the only one to blame for it, anyway. Yet he can't make himself feel bad about it. He'd choose the memories from his world over this one any time. And so he did.

"Hiya, Cas," he calls out, hanging his jacket on the back of a chair, his fingers grasp the wood as he leans over it with his eyes closed. "Come on, man, it's been three months and not a sign of life from you. I'm starting to feel like a dumped girlfriend here: first you jumped my bones then you don't even call?" he tries to joke, but his voice catches in his throat. He needs to swallow heavily, before resuming the prayer. "Anyway, I hope you've healed by now. That wound was nasty. And the rest?" he thinks about his knee that still aches dully when he walks for too long, of his spine that gives him hell more often than not, or the nose that he suspects to have moved a speck to the right. Of course it could have been much worse, so he doesn't complain. At least after a heavy dose of painkillers he doesn't. "But you know all that. I miss you, buddy. I think it's high time for that weekend visit, don't you think? Don't even ask, just come, I'm saying _yes_. Just– Cas, just come."

On the good days, Dean opens his eyes and looks around the room, waiting for the angel to pop up, like he used to do, even if he knows he can only come in a form of bright light from above or white noise. On the bad days, he's convinced he's talking to himself. Today is the bad day.

"See ya, Cas," he finishes, but after a beat he adds: "Love you."

He doesn't bother taking a shower, although he should. There's still dirt on his hands and under his fingernails from digging the grave. But instead he just takes off his shoes and jeans and crawls under the covers. He lies flat on his back and stares at the ceiling for a couple of minutes to calm himself down. Then he closes his eyes.

He would go for a cliché of darkness greeting him like a good friend, but it's a different kind of darkness, not a friendly one; just a regular, ordinary darkness. There is nothing blue in it. Not yet. He's getting better at it, now he just needs a few minutes to ease the tension from all of his muscles. He loves the feeling of letting go of his body, when it's like his limbs turn off one by one and then fall off, completely out of his control like they used to be. Soon his torso too, and his head get anesthetized and for a second he doesn't exist. Then, like a switch, his brain changes waves and he can begin to lighten the darkness up.

He starts with his anchor, her gleaming, black paint, her smooth shape, then he goes through the whole routine, his palms on the wheel and the roar of her engine. It's not as easy as it used to be when he would start up in the void, but he's getting there. At least now he's aware of what he's doing, so he can skip the entire "I'm nothing" phase.

He likes to begin on the road, this way it feels like he's coming back home, and home is always in the same, old forest; white walls and the red roof breaking the monotony of the green and brown landscape. They've got fucking flowers in the garden, he's not the one who takes care of them, he only sometimes makes up some colorful, exotic plants for fun.

"You've been drinking," he hears Cas's voice in the living room, he's turned away from him, with his legs on the coffee table, eyes fixed to the screen. The living room is the second best place in the house, right after the bedroom. The third is the kitchen: it has the pies that don't ever make him flabby.

He didn't used to make real people, because they weren't real and neither is Cas. He's made of bones and flesh of Jimmy Novak's. Dean dresses him up nicely and stuffs words into his throat, then sits back and pretends Cas is not a puppet. There is a lot of bitterness in the concept of switched places.

"It's not exactly easy out there, you know?" he mutters, nuzzling Cas's neck.

He won't tell him about all troubles of the other world, they don't do that here. He is here to forget, to start forgetting again what he was supposed to remember. It's cheating, but he doesn't give a fuck as long as he can come back here and push the damn burden away.

"I'm giving you five years and you won't even remember what you were drinking about."

"Alright then, make me forget." He kisses Cas with his eyes closed.

There's always a certain dose of anxiety accompanying his first glimpse at Cas's face, because he'll have to look at that face and kiss that face for the rest of the limited infinity – until he wakes up. And there is always something wrong with Cas. Sometimes it's one eye green, sometimes swollen lips or a sliced throat, constantly bleeding, turning the dream into a half-nightmare. Dean believes it's a punishment for choosing the wrong thing, but maybe his soul has rotten after all, maybe he's a coward. Maybe he's a cheat who cheats on Sam and on Bobby. He cheats on Cas and perhaps that's why he won't come. Or maybe Cas is just dead.

Dean opens his eyes to glance at his copy of Cas and barely holds back the scream of terror. Cas's eyes stare ahead dead and empty, looking at him, but piercing right through him, like he's not there. Like Cas is not in there. He needs a few deep breaths to calm down – for the first time he's doubting if he's gonna make it. He wishes he could reach out and close his eyes with his palm like he did to the original set of those dead eyes. He wishes he could stab them out – two gaping holes seem more bearable than this. But then Cas's dead eyes squint at him, puzzled. His copy of Cas never knows these things, he never can know them, because if he did, the curtain could fall. And so Dean has to pretend everything's fine and hide his dread or his disgust and unease.

Still, he chooses this. Every night, closing his eyes, Dean chooses this. And maybe he is all the bad things for choosing wrong and he deserves the punishment of Cas broken or twisted. He probably does. He'd still choose small infinities in here and the eternities in his memory any day, with the fucked up, low quality photocopy of Cas over the Schrödinger's Cas he's left without out there and the baggage of guilt in exchange.

"Bedroom," he murmurs, grabbing Cas's hand.

For as long as he can't have the real blue fill him up with sweet laugh, he chooses this.

All his life – all his infinities too – he's spent, he's wasted on the roads, on the missions that didn't matter and on people who weighted him down, and too late – so, so late – he realized: he could choose home instead.

And so he does.


End file.
